Today, we take a closer look at the ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3. A transparent hard drive enclosure that is stylish and affordable. This enclosure brings a great deal on the table because of its price and feature. Is it worth having? Let’s go find out!
ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3
Product Specification:
- Compatible HDD Type2.5 inch HDD / SSD SATA I, II, III
- USB3.0 Micro B
- Controller: Norelsys NS1068X
- Supports Up To 2TB of Drive
- Dimension: 124.5 x 79 x 13mm
- Plus and Play
- Supported System: Windows 2000 / XP / 7 / 8 / 10, Linux, Mac OS 9.1 or above
- Safety Approval: CE / FCC / RoHS
- Version Black / Red Capacitor
- Available in White, Blue, Orange, Green, and Purple.
Product Dimension:
Where To Buy
Unboxing – ORICO Transparent HDD Enclosure 2139U3
The packaging of the ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 is of plain carton box. Quite your typical packaging box that you can mostly see from different devices. Given the simplistic design of the box, this is probably to cut cost and offer this stylish HDD enclosure for a cheap price of less than ₱ 500.
The top packaging highlights the main selling points of any enclosure nowadays. Tool free, USB 3.0, and 5Gbps of speed transfer. Converting that in number that most will understand, that’s about 625 MB/s peak speed transfer. We will get into that later on.
Looking at the back of the packaging, a few more information is highlighted. Such as more information about ORICO, about the product, and the serial number.
Opening the package, you’ll be greeted with a CPE plastic bag. This plastic bag protects and holds the actual product in place. Preventing any trivial damages to the product. Furthermore, I believe this is also a cost effective packaging. It gets the job done at a low cost allowing ORICO to further sell this enclosure for a cheaper price.
CPE or Chlorinated Polyethylene is a type of plastic bag widely used in electronics. It’s none toxic and odourless and can sometimes be composted if you’re thinking about the environment.
Taking out the enclosure itself doesn’t reveal much although you can already see the PCB board of the enclosure.
Removing the CPE plastic bag reveals the actual product, the ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3. The enclosure is covered with protective plastic. These plastics are removable of course. Though we find that keeping the plastic intact keeps the enclosure clean and clear. Also, protects it from scratches.
The PCB with the ORICO logo can also be seen. The SATA and the USB 3.0 port can also be seen.
Accessories
Taking out all the content of the packaging. The ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 comes with a USB 3.0 cable which is, by all means, feels sturdy and durable.
And a user’s manual. It’s a very thin manual. Probably because you won’t actually need to read it given that you probably know what to do already.
Closer Look – ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3
Taking a closer look at the actual enclosure shows that the enclosure isn’t designed to provide any shock proof protection as well as water proof protection. So if you’re using it with a traditional hard drive then you accidentally dropped it, it is safe to assume that your hard drive is as good as dead or rendered unusable. You also outta be careful placing a glass of beverage near when using this enclosure.
The PCB system of the enclosure uses three solid capacitors with ratings of 47 capacitance and 16 volts. The presence of these capacitors ensures a good and healthy voltage and power running through the system without any spikes or noises.
Inspecting the PCB some more, although as stated in the specification already, the ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 uses Norelsys NS1068X sa its bridge controller from USB 3.0 to SATA III and vice versa.
Bridge Controller – NS1068X USB 3.0 to SATA Ⅲ
The NS1068X bridge controller, according to Norelsys, is a versatile high-performance and low power USB 3.0 to SATA bridge controller. The diagram shown above reveals how this bridge controller work. Of course, most will probably not care about this info but little did most people know that this is an old bridge controller. This controller was launched in 2013 and the only controller available for this kind of device from Norelsys.
Going back to our closer look, this enclosure uses the usual USB 3.0 Micro-B 10 Pin port. Nothing fancy to mention.
The enclosure was pretty easy to open. You just have to pull the top cover with your palm and push the bottom part of the case in opposite but horizontal direction and not going towards each other.
Since this is a 2.5-inch enclosure, any 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD will surely fit. However, I find it bothersome to plug a drive inside because you have to plug it with some applied force at an angle. Although, if you think about it, the use of this product, you probably will not take the inserted drive out anytime soon.
And ta-da! Like most of ORICO’s enclosure, it is really a tool-less enclosure for hard drives and easy to install.
Performance
Since this is an HDD enclosure, the actual data transfer speed rate depends on the performance rating of the drive that you will install and the efficiency of the bridge controller. Surely, if you install an SSD, it will be limited to the 5Gbps. Consumer grade mechanical hard drives are still not fast enough to even saturate USB 3.0 speed of 5Gbps.
Transfer Rate
For this performance test, we used a mechanical hard drive as our storage drive for our enclosure, a western digital blue with 5400 RPM, and an SSD as our main OS drive. Doing so will eliminate any slow downs when transferring a chunk of data from HDD to SSD.
Moving a 3GB movie size, the drive peaks at 119MB/s for both read and write. Again, the results highly depend on the speed of each drives being used.
Gallery
Our Verdict
What we liked about the ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 is its feature for its price. You will rarely see a USB 3.0 HDD enclosure at that price point. This ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 is being sold at LAZADA for less than PHP500.
What we did not like is its lack of protection. Unlike their Orico 2599US3 Hard Disk Drive Enclosure, the ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 doesn’t come with any foam for that added shock protection. You actually just get a clear, plain, but stylish HDD enclosure. Another thing that we did not like is its mounting process. If you try to insert a hard drive or an SSD, you need to apply some force to insert the drive at an angle. That could potentially damage the SATA port of your drive and the port in the enclosure.
Overall, ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 is a value oriented and stylish HDD enclosure. However, it is not an enclosure for all. If you’re clumsy and tends to drop things, you better avoid buying this enclosure. Otherwise, if all you need is a decent HDD enclosure that doesn’t break the bank, then the ORICO Transparent Hard Drive Enclosure 2139U3 is worth considering.
2 Comments
350 sa DQ. ☺
Yes 350 sa DQ kung pick up sa shop nila, pwede din nila i-deliver yan +150 din in certain Metro Manila Area.