Akasa Integral S 3.5″ External USB3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure Review

There are a number of products that we get in that are not latest tech, in that they are an addition to a solution that was found many years ago to a problem that was once had. The Integral S is one such product, but where we will segregate it from the mass market is its sleek designs and lack of drive performance degradation. I’ve seen many external enclosures over the years that have had a major effect on a drives performance when installed and not surprisingly these were the cheap £9.99 enclosures that were found all over the place.

Design wise, the enclosure looks sleek and stylish whether it be on its side in the included footstand or laying flat – even though the gloss black aluminium is a bit of a fingerprint magnet. The chrome trim around the front and rear edges adds a bit of style to the frame with the blue logo lighting up the front finishing it right off. The only flaw that I could see with the design is the cable that links the front panel LED to the PCB at the rear. When the tray has been slid out to install a hard drive, I found you have to part insert the drive into the enclosure first then fitting it to the tray instead of vice versa as the size of a hard drive and the restriction on the cable meant that the tray was too close to turn and line up with the remainder of the enclosure.

Akasa as we know doesn’t sell the cheap tacky £9.99 enclosures that don’t do quite what they say on the tin. If you want a quality enclosure thats built solid, looks good and doesn’t affect your drives performance, then you’ll be expecting to pay a reasonable amount. The Integral S is such an item that falls into the later category and boasting full USB3.0 connectivity as well is a bonus to really give as good as it gets. Priced at around £34/€42/$53 its very well placed in the market and considering the number of locations where you can use this, for example, as additional storage on a games console, SFF PC, backup drive etc its certainly worth it.