Airbox 3.5” eSATA/USB External Enclosure
The Airbox 3.5” external enclosure brings the best of both eSATA and USB connections with the cooling power of a fan for the best possible transfer speeds, flexibility and longevity of your drive.
Ease of Use, Performance: 21/25
Look & Feel: 20/25
Features 23/25
How much I enjoy 23/25
Total: 87/100
The Airbox by Sunbeamtech is a 3.5” external enclosure for your hard drive that has two connection options as well as a cooling fan for a great performing enclosure. The Airbox comes with the enclosure itself, a stand for the enclosure, a power adapter, USB cable, eSATA extension cable, four screws for the hard drive installation and a screw driver along with a quick install guide.
The Airbox enclosure fits a regular 3.5” SATA hard drive for an external enclosure in whatever capacity you want but the Airbox only supports up to 1.5 terabyte drives. The Airbox enclosure is hot swappable so you can install and remove the enclosure from your system with power on without worries about damaging your computer.
I would however recommend that you turn power off to the enclosure itself when swapping it out but you can leave power on your computer. The Airbox enclosure does have the push button power switch on the back to not only turn the power off but to save power when it’s not in use.
The eSATA connection allows up to 3 gigbytes per second transfer rates while the USB 2.0 allows up to 480 megabytes per second but the reality of transfer speeds depends on more than just the enclosure. I tested the enclosure while also testing a flash drive and was seeing 43 to 113 megabytes per second using eSATA and 18.49 to 30 megabytes per second using USB.
The transfer rates are not at the maximum that Sunbeamtech states due to real world circumstances and things like my computer cabling internally and motherboard features. As a comparison I also tested the SATA hard drive that is the C or main drive in my computer and I was getting 44.72 to 113 megabytes per second.
The eSATA connection is as good as my main drive so the enclosure works really well for data transfer and is easy to use and setup. To install a drive you simply remove the two screws from the rear of the enclosure to pull the internal part of the enclosure out for installation of your drive.
Plug the drive in by sliding it into the connections and secure with the four screws but you need to use a regular #2 Philips screw driver and not the enclosed smaller one. The smaller Philips screwdriver is for the enclosure screws that hold the main part into the cover.
Once you have secured your drive in place simply slide the enclosure back together and secure the two smaller cover screws in place. Connect the power cord and the USB or eSATA cable to the enclosure and your computer to finish setup and you can power up the enclosure.
The enclosure has a power button on the back near the connections as well as a fan LED button to turn on and off the LED’s on the inside that you can see through the fan cover. This switch is only for the LED’s and not the fan so the fan is running anytime the enclosure is powered on to help cool your drive.
The Airbox enclosure performs well and the setup is very simple as well as the enclosure looking good with its flat black finish and blue LED for those that like a little bling. You can also turn the LED’s off but the front LED bar is an indicator for drive activity so the front LED is an activity indicator.
The enclosure can be setup to use the stand and sit vertically on your computer desk or lying flat or stacked on other items or enclosures. But be careful if you do stack this as the enclosure does have the fan cover on the side and should be open for airflow through the box.
While other enclosures may have bright LED lights or fancy looks this enclosure offers two great features that really do make it stand out, the connectivity between USB or eSATA and the fan. The Sunbeamtech Airbox is a great hard drive enclosure and does offer the two connection options as well as cooling from the enclosed fan for a great performing hard drive enclosure.
Check out the Sunbeamtech website for more information on the Airbox or purchase it from internet 3.5”computer hardware stores such as Newegg for about $35.