Deal | Baseus 2.5-inch enclosure now shipping for $21 USD, promises compatibility with Playstation 5 and XBox consoles
There are a lot of options for hard drive enclosures these days and almost all of them are very inexpensive. Baseus sent us one of their affordable solutions for our impressions and, after spending a week with it, we can certainly recommend it if its small list of disadvantages don't bother you.
First, let's get some tech specs out of the way. The Baseus 2.5-inch enclosure will work with 7 mm and 9.5 mm 2.5-inch SATA III SSDs or HDDs. The unit is all plastic but with rubber liners inside to reduce vibrations and offer a snug fit. It integrates a USB-C interface that theoretically supports up to Type-C Gen. 2 speeds, but most users will be seeing slower SATA III speeds instead since that is what most 2.5-inch drives are limited to.
The Baseus enclosure leaves great first impressions. It's smooth and minimalist with no screws or fancy features. Meanwhile, the red LED light isn't too bright and drives slide in without any issues. We tested both a 7 mm SSD and 9.5 mm HDD which worked without any additional setup on PC or PS4.
There are a few things we would like to see changed about the enclosure. The outer cover, for example, can be difficult to slide open since its surface is so smooth. Integrating better finger grips would make this first step easier. Secondly, once a drive is inserted, it becomes quite difficult to remove without applying a lot of force with your thumbs. An attachable ribbon for pulling out the drive would have helped here.
And lastly, it's worth noting that the packaging only includes a USB-C to USB-C cable with no USB-A or MicroUSB adapters. Be sure to have an adapter nearby if your host PC, console, or Mac has no available USB-C ports.
The Baseus enclosure works well if you plan on traveling with it often or if you have just one or two drives to work with. If you'll be swapping drives out frequently, however, then the lack of grips and handles can be somewhat annoying.