iStarUSA is starting to become a commonplace around ClubOC, and mostly because they have an effective product line-up that you can't help but notice. Whether if its from their hot-swap arrays or perhaps their enclosures, iStarUSA is really making a name for themselves in the workstation PC market. Today we are going to dive into the inner working of what kind of single drive enclosures IStar offers. Sure you have probably seen a hot swap bay, but did you know that they can be very useful when built right? that may prove to be quite a claim, but if you want your data secure nothing beats hardware security. Forget firewalls and passwords, too put it quite simply, iStar gives you that simple on-off switch called 'remove'...

Specifications:

• Model Number: T-7M1-SA

• RoHS Compliance: Yes

• Enclosure Interface: 1x5.25" Standard Drive Bay

• Cooling: 1x60mm Blower

• Interface: SATA 2.0 Hot-Swap Capable

• Materials: All Aluminum Design

• Color: Black

• Red: T-7M1-SARED

• Blue: T-7M1-SABLUE

• Silver: T-7M1-SASILVER

• Cables: Yes

• Weight: 3.0 lbs

• Color of Handle: Silver / Black / Blue / Red

• Dimensions H/W: 146 x 42 x 186 mm
  

Features:

• SATA Interface

• Cableless Connection, Support Plug & Play, Hot-Swappable

• All Aluminum for Best Heat Sink

• Best Air Ventilation with 1x60mm Blower Fan

• Point to Point, Free from Master/Slave Setting

     Our rack was equipped with the optional fan, which is actually fairly noiseless. You can't hear it above your other system fans, but its is audible by itself. The only reason I can see the fan as an option is for some of the hotter drives out there, but most modern drives actually need to be within a certain operating temperature, so as long as you have decent case cooling, the fan option is pretty much user preference.

     The chassis basically mounts inside your case, and the drive slides into the base. Keeping the internal chassis small makes the iStar a winner in the HD rack competition.

     The construction of this rack is above average. utilizing some of the strongest ABS, with an aluminum chassis as a base, unless your existing drive is extremely fragile you should suffer any loss if you drop it, but that is a theory no PC user really would want to attest to :). It is worth mentioning that every HD rack I have seen thus far develops structural problems within its interface, but the one piece fascia allows the iStar to have a brilliant mechanism that will no doubt last the life of more than one drive. The aluminum latch is nice too, you just slide the drive in or out by lightly pushing the latch in with a secure 'click'. Its these little details that seem to be overlooked in the design of other racks I have seen.

     iStar, much like the previous review chooses to provide everything you need in the retail package, including a SATA cable and installation screws.

     SATA drive installed... The iStar rack when installed in your case looks great too considering they offer different colors for the lock handle. The Audio version as shown also comes in a military design that looks even tougher.

     The iStar interface revealed. noticed the aluminum channels that run across the inside allowing you to confidently utilize its secure function without fear of the drive never coming out again. For those that need locking capability, iStar offers the T-7M1 SA.

     The back of the rack reveals the location of your cables and power. I had no problems using a quality single SATA/12v cable.

     iStar has a winner here. I can't see any reason why not to have one of these, especially if your data spans multiple workstations. The T-7M1-SA has such a small footprint compared to other racks I've seen, and proven a durable design, it should be effortless to integrate into your usage environment. The only shortcoming I can find is that iStar needs to offer it to those of use that have beige cases, I cant picture a beige case having a black rack with a red handle unless its your own expression of post-modern PC art, lol. Luckily black cases are fairly commonplace, and these racks are very affordable which should make it a easy buyers choice for a new PC or if you are just upgrading your existing one.

Note: Club Overclocker is now using a new rating system based on a score of 1 to 5.
Please go to our rating system page for more information.

Performance:	N/A
Innovation:	4 out of 5
Quality:	5 out of 5
Stability:	N/A
Aesthetics:	4 out of 5
Software/Drivers Pack:	N/A
Overclocking:	N/A
Value:	5 out of 5
Project Skill Level (5 being most difficult)	3 out of 5