ok, this isn't a very "scientific" review but i just wanted to share some opinions about my new external hard drive. this is mostly about the case, but the hard drive (western digital caviar se 300gb ide drive) is great too and there was a huge rebate from newegg 
k, the enclosure is an AMS Venus ds3 USB 2.0/Firewire combo enclosure. when i first took the box out of the fedex box i said, man this is light, but it was just a lot of really light packaging. the hard drive itself is rather heavy black aluminum, with a small vent on either side and some grooves running in rows on the sides and part of the top. it's got a plastic cover on the front and a matching one on the back where the ports are. since it's usb and firewire it obviously has those but it also has a 4 pin firewire connector which is nice although it didn't include a 4 pin firewire cable. on the front behind the cover is says "venus ds3" and it has a subtle led that glows green when idle and orange during disk access. as far as installing the drive, it's very simple even though i've never installed a hard drive in an enclosure or even in a pc case lol there's a tray that slides out with all the electronics and such on it and a really thin 80mm fan that i swear is completely silent even when my emac's asleep i can't hear it. it took me only about 5 min to install the drive, tighten the 2 screws (only two, it's nice) on the back, plug it into power and boom! i was formatting the drive. so insanely simple lol although i'm sure all external drives are like that. i've been transferring stuff for about an hour (transfer, then erase, repeat to test the drive) and it's still cool to the touch--cooler than my computer's case. it does a good job of insulating the drive and i can't hear it even when it's accessing or writing or anything, although maybe it's just a quiet drive or something. if you're looking for a realy nice external enclosure for a 3.5" hard drive it's a great buy, a bit expensive (i paid $57 from newegg) but definitely worth it. if i have any issues i'll be sure to update this thread to reflect that oh by the way i wasn't sure about where to put this so if it's in the wrong place or w/e just move it
--Alex
k, the enclosure is an AMS Venus ds3 USB 2.0/Firewire combo enclosure. when i first took the box out of the fedex box i said, man this is light, but it was just a lot of really light packaging. the hard drive itself is rather heavy black aluminum, with a small vent on either side and some grooves running in rows on the sides and part of the top. it's got a plastic cover on the front and a matching one on the back where the ports are. since it's usb and firewire it obviously has those but it also has a 4 pin firewire connector which is nice although it didn't include a 4 pin firewire cable. on the front behind the cover is says "venus ds3" and it has a subtle led that glows green when idle and orange during disk access. as far as installing the drive, it's very simple even though i've never installed a hard drive in an enclosure or even in a pc case lol
there's a tray that slides out with all the electronics and such on it and a really thin 80mm fan that i swear is completely silent even when my emac's asleep i can't hear it. it took me only about 5 min to install the drive, tighten the 2 screws (only two, it's nice) on the back, plug it into power and boom! i was formatting the drive. so insanely simple lol although i'm sure all external drives are like that. i've been transferring stuff for about an hour (transfer, then erase, repeat to test the drive) and it's still cool to the touch--cooler than my computer's case. it does a good job of insulating the drive and i can't hear it even when it's accessing or writing or anything, although maybe it's just a quiet drive or something. if you're looking for a realy nice external enclosure for a 3.5" hard drive it's a great buy, a bit expensive (i paid $57 from newegg) but definitely worth it. if i have any issues i'll be sure to update this thread to reflect that oh by the way i wasn't sure about where to put this so if it's in the wrong place or w/e just move it --Alex
