SPCR

Antec MX-1

Circuit City has Antec MX-1 enclosure at $39.99+tax which is significantly less than anybody else selling it on the web. Free shipping too.

I just bought one and picked it up today.

On a side note, I didn't know Antec released another enclosure named the MX-100 which seems to be fanless and has no eSATA which I saw sitting on the shelves.

Anyway...the fan is really loud. It is louder than my PC which has two really loud Seagate drives and I couldn't seem to get the eSATA to work consistently. USB worked fine and it did keep my hard drive cool. Maybe it's my chipset (nForce 6150/430) but I don't have time to experiment.

But the noise is not acceptable (and I think Antec Tricools are quiet!) so it's going to be returned; a pity since the price is nice and it is very nice looking.

alphabetbackward
I think MX-100 is fanless so I wouldn't run it for more than 20 minutes at a time while MX-1 thanks to a relatively quiet fan can be run continuously without the risk of overheating.

Regarding fan on MX-1, I bought one, haven't had a chance to try it out yet because my main PC is down at the moment, however I really don't think it should be that loud as you describe it. In any case, I figure, and you can try it, you can always put inline resistor which should slow down the fan while still keeping temperatures at acceptable levels. Don't forget this is external enclosure, it's not really meant to always run (even though you could), and the are plenty of other horrible enclosures much worse than MX-1, either with no fan at all or with 40mm screamer. I mean if you need an external 3.5" enclosure, what else are you going to buy?


BTW in-store price for MX-1 is still $69.99, so unless you want to argue with a sales person about the price, either have it shipped, or do in-store pick-up.

I purchased one at CC and returned it. The fan wasn't to loud, but it amplified the hard drive noise to much. I tried in both vertical and horizontal configurations, horizontal was better, but not good enough.

I had no problems with the esata with an nvidia 7150/630a chipset and it did keep the drive nice and cool, to bad it made the drive sound like a pinball machine.

jstyles wrote:I purchased one at CC and returned it. The fan wasn't to loud, but it amplified the hard drive noise to much. I tried in both vertical and horizontal configurations, horizontal was better, but not good enough.

I had no problems with the esata with an nvidia 7150/630a chipset and it did keep the drive nice and cool, to bad it made the drive sound like a pinball machine.

Which hard drive did you use?
I was wondering if you should rather go for a low vibration drive like the WD instead of a Samsung if you want to put it in an MX-1?

JazzJackRabbit wrote:alphabetbackward
I think MX-100 is fanless so I wouldn't run it for more than 20 minutes at a time while MX-1 thanks to a relatively quiet fan can be run continuously without the risk of overheating.

I run fanless cases very similar to the MX-100 for days on end with no problems. So do most people. Modern drives can operate at up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit safely.

Don't forget it's in the drive manufacturers best interest to use a conservative number for their drives max. operating temperature.

It's on sale again at Circuit City.

I'm thinking of giving Antec another chance. Has anyone had any success recently with this enclosure?