By "Doctor Dave" Greenbaum

You just decided to upgrade your Macbook hard drive to take advantage of the incredible storage space out there now or maybe you are adventuresome and switched to a Solid State Drive. What should you do with the old hard drive?

If you are looking for an easy, economical repurposing of that old hard drive, the OWC Express 2.0 enclosure (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/ES2.5BPU2S/) is an excellent choice at US$19.99. Unfortunately I've been burned figuratively and literally by inferior quality enclosures with questionable origin -- my Mac Pro has the scorch marks on the USB port to attest to this fact. Luckily, this enclosure comes from a company which stands behind their product and truly knows the Mac.

Don't expect many bells and whistles on this unit. The case is made of plastic despite its faux metal appearance. Nonetheless, the case is sturdy and has stood the test of time being a spare hard drive I keep in my laptop bag for large data transfers.

Installation of the old drive into the case was simple:  a few screws and you are done.  Clear instructions were included as well as USB cable. Included additionally in the kit is a faux leather carrying case to match the faux metal case. The carrying case had little value because I couldn't easily carry the case and the USB cable. No big deal, but a little more attention to the design would have added significant value to the carrying case.

Whether you are looking for a portable drive or an easy Time Machine backup, the OWC Express 2.0  is an inexpensive and reliable way to reuse an old SATA drive while sticking with Other World Computing's legendary quality.

Pros: Inexpensive and reliable

Cons: Faux leather carrying case isn't very useful

Rating 8 out of 10