Addonics Pocket ExDrive (AEED25U) Storage Cabinet

Epinions either doesn't have the correct graphic or model# for this item, they picture the pcmcia enclosure but the model number for that item ends in a P not a U.

There's not really a great deal to say about this gadget. It is a external case/enclosure, that can be interface powered (pcmcia/USB/firewire) or externally powered with an AC adapter. The enclosure is designed to hold a current industry standard IDE interface 2.5"/9.5mm or an older 12mm (not made any more) notebook computer hard drive. Notebook hard disks are currently available in sizes from 20 gigs to 80 gigs and there is talk of new technology that will soon make even larger notebook/laptop drives possible.

This particular enclosure is unusual for the following reasons:
1. It has an external power option (ac adpater and usb power cable is included in the box)
2. The interface cable is interchangeable (i.e. you can buy it with a pcmcia (aka pc card) interface now and get a usb or firewire cable later for about half the cost of buying an entire new enclosure).
3. You can purchase a "drive bay" that can be installed in your desktop computer case (5.25" drive bay with front access) and permits the enclosure to be installed in your desktop for easy mobility of very large files, backups, security, etc.
4. This enclosure can also be separated from many of the cheap enclosures that you find on ebay and at shows because the electronics are especially compatible with the ATA standard. For most people, that probably doesn't mean a lot but if you're trying to make this product work in a way other than what it was designed for, that fact is important.

What attracted to me to this particular product is my desire to have a reasonable amount of portable external storage for my handheld device that runs pocket pc 2003 that can also be used with my laptop or my desktop. There are no products like this officially designed and sold for any handheld other than the ipaq but I'm going to work at getting it going for my Dell Axim. Pcmcia hard drives can be bought that definetly work but for about the same price a notebook drive in an enclosure offers much more storage (5 gig max versus 80 gig max) than a pcmcia hard disk does for the same layout.

What's in the box:
-Enclosure
-external adapter cable (pcmcia in this case, note, there is apparently also a "cardbus" version of this adapter that can be set to cardbus or pcmcia mode via a switch on the cable)
-AC adapter (5 volts, 2 amps)
-USB power adapter
-software CD (drivers are not needed under windows os, you get some backup software etc.)
-4 tiny screws to screw in the hard disk to the enclosure.

Installation:
1. The enclosure is not held closed by screws, press inward on the middle of the side of the bottom half of the enclosure and it will pop open.
2. Be sure the notebook hard drive is jumpered as master (see your documentation, most drives come already set as master drive, if you don't have documentation of jumper settings you can find it on the manufacturer's internet page). The enclosure has jumper settings for common hard drive manufacturers printed on the bottom (master is generally no jumpers at all).
3. Pull the circuit board out of the enclosure and put the notebook drive on top with the connector installed. Turn the drive and circuit board over and screw the four tiny screws into the bottom of the drive (thus holding the circuit board to the bottom of the drive).
4. Put the drive in the bottom half of the enclosure and check again to be sure the connector at the back has fully seated with your hard drive. An extra tiny drive jumper is provided inside the case, I just left it in there loose for another time so it wasn't lost.
(Note: The drive enclosure will support dma transfers if the jumpers are set inside but this only works if you're using this in the desktop drive bay, dma mode doesn't work for any of the external options firewire/usb/pcmcia)

Operation:
Drivers: When using this setup with a notebook or desktop you should not need any drivers if your operating system is windows 98 or newer.

Interface: If using pcmcia with an older laptop/notebook computer you may need to shut down before installing the pcmcia interface as the machine may not support "hot swap." A new laptop "should" be hot swappable and not need to be shut down if you need to install/remove pcmcia cards.

Power: As stated earlier, the enclosure/drive can be "bus" powered from the pcmcia bus or externally powered. Older laptops "might" have a problem supplying enough power to this device, check your manual for information on this. The enclosure has a switch on it that needs to be correctly set for internal(bus power) or external (ac or usb adapter). If using a USB cable as an interface it should work fine on internal power but older laptops with early usb implementations again might have a problem supplying the power a hard drive needs. This device will probably be a fairly substantial hit on laptop battery life if you use it more than a little.

Wrap up:
What do I think of it? I think for the price the enclosure itself is kind of chintzy. It's all made of plastic. At the very least there should be one or two screws to hold it together and there isn't even that. I can see where this enclosure probably wouldn't survive a lot of opening and closing to put a new hard disk inside. The case has a good number of air vents on the bottom and the front of the case has an indentation that must be there so you can pull it out of the desktop bay easily.

I'd advise putting the drive in there and leaving it there to avoid any chance of breaking the enclosure just opening and closing it up. I also think it's really hard to close it back up after the drive is installed, it's really hard to line it all up and close it. You're always afraid you're going to break something getting it popped back together. Mostly what you're paying for with this gadget is the quality of the interface electronics.

Using this as external storage for a pocket pc handheld device:

You might ask why I want so much storage for a handheld computer? I use my handheld for a mapping GPS, the entire continental US maps are nearly a gigabyte by themselves. Other uses would be for digital photo storage (I can put my sd card in the axim and move the photos to the hard drive), to hold mpeg4 movies that will play on the axim, and for mp3 music storage (a few gigabyte is thousands of tracks of music).

If you search on "Ipaq Storage Brick" using a search engine like Google, you will find an article written by someone that made this enclosure work properly with his ipaq. In order to make it work he had to make some modifications to the "stock" microsoft pocket pc storage driver(which should work the way it is but doesn't because it's picky. The modified mass storage driver only works with some pcmcia interface electronics). The driver for pc2002 is available on that page.

By installing drivers made by other companies for other products (and I can't put that in print here because someone might get upset about it) some people have successfully got this enclosure working under pocket pc 2003/windows mobile 2003 with an ipaq 4400 or newer handheld with a pcmcia sleeve. The ipaq add-on "sleeve" adds one or two standard type II pcmcia slots to an existing later model Compaq Ipaq (I know the 4400 and newer series have this sleeve available but I'm not sure whether it works with the lower end models).

Because my Axim only has a Compact flash CFIO slot I will be using a CF to pcmcia adapter (ATA interface is built into the pcmcia standard) to connect this drive and it will have to be externally powered because of power supply issues from the compact flash slot. Notebook hard drives need 5 volts and .5 amp (or a bit more) to operate properly. The ipaq pcmcia sleeve has its own battery and can meet those power requirements, while my axim cannot so I will be limited to using my setup only where I have AC/DC power available unless I can come up with a battery package that will supply the necessary juice. (There is one enclosure product I've found with a battery pack but the price is completely outrageous.) From all indications this setup should work on my Axim, but no one has tried it yet that I can find. The interchangeable cables make it a versatile item that can be used in other ways, if it doesn't work maybe next year when windows mobile 2004 comes out I'll have better luck. If not I'll just save up and buy an Ipaq--the newest one is quite a machine.

update: I finally got all my pieces together to try to make this work on my axim using a cf to pcmcia adapter, so far no go. I think the machine sees the drive and is trying to communicate with it but it's just not working right yet. Oh well, the problem would seem to be drivers as the drive light indicates it is trying to read. Maybe someone will write a proper driver soon, for now I guess I'm back to the small pcmcia hard drives that I know for sure will work with my axim.

update: I bought a Toshiba e805 pda, with the add-on presentation pack (that adds a usb port) and some third party drivers (anypak--www.anypakusa.com sells the driver for $20.00 US), I can use this enclosure (with the usb interface cable) and read/write to the enclosed harddrive. For a battery package, one of those PDA recharge boxes sold on ebay for about ten bucks did the trick. These units hold 4AA rechargeable batteries (alkaline would be too high voltage at 1.5 V each where rechargeables are generally 1.2V each). I bought the one sold for the toshiba e570 or audiovox maestro unit and it works perfectly to power the hard drive, so that means a 12V adapter for the same pda should also power the unit. Most pdas that I'm familiar with use right around 5v input and the tip polarity also seems to be the same. The anypak driver also works with my archos mp3 player. The archos is even more portable than this setup, but with this I can go to a bigger drive later.