RocketMate 1100

     HighPoint Tech. was nice enought to send over a pair of their new RocketMate 1100 e.SATA Hard Drive Enclosures. These are not straight up SATA enclosures for SATA hard drives. The RocketMate 1100 is actually an all-in-one SATA to IDE adapter and enclosure for standard IDE hard drives. I believe that this product is a great move as many of us have plenty of IDE hard drives sitting around, especially if have upgraded to SATA hard drives.

A couple problems to overcome...

     The RocketMate 1100 comes with a nice aluminum enclosure, power cable, screws, and e.SATA cable. Unfortunately, the directions that came with the units could use a little work. HighPoint must have changed the design of the enclosure after the manual was written, because the manuals we received were off on a couple points. Regardless, tearing down the RocketMate 1100 enclosure was pretty much self explanatory so you really don't need explicit instructions. You simply remove the two screws in the back of the enclosure and slide out the internal bay.

     Besides the User's Manual, I did have a couple more problems and concerns. First of all, one of the screws that hold the internal bay in place was already stripped out. I then stripped out two more screws on the other enclosure putting it back together. These enclosures may be solid aluminum, but the screws holding them together are just too small. Another problem is the internal bays fit extremely tight in the housing, making it very difficult to remove the internal bay. With a little prying with a flat blade screw driver, I was able to slide out the bay enough to grip it and force it out by hand. They have a tight and precise fit, but a little too tight. One more thing that I was concerned with is there is no ventilation or cooling fan for the hard drive. Sure, the enclosures are aluminum and should absorb much of the heat, but I still don't like the idea. Excessive heat will shorten the life of a hard drive. Anyway, once I retapped the enclosures with larger screws and sanded down the internal bays so they would slide in and out of the enclosures, I was all set and ready to go...