Strengths: Fast and easy to upgrade a hard drive and change partition sizes at the same time.
Weakness: Plastic case may not be durable enough for travel use as an extra external hard drive.
Needed to upgrade a Dell Latitude D600 from a 40GB to 80GB internal hard drive. Original drive was partitioned into C: and D: partitions, and the C: (System) partition needed to be enlarged on the new drive. The EZ Gig II software included with the kit allows you to proportionately increase the size of the existing partitions, or manually control the new sizes using a user-friendly graphical interface. Included 25-page manual is adequate, and worth reading before proceeding. Was able to complete the upgrade using only USB bus power (i.e., without using an external A/C power supply) -- should you need an A/C power supply, you can order directly from Apricorn for $10, which includes ground shipping. Called tech support to check the power specs for an external adapter and reached a tech in 7 minutes, which I consider reasonable. Otherwise, no tech help was needed. Total time from opening the box to physically swapping the drives was much less than 1 hour; just 38 minutes to clone the drive containing 30GB of data. While I agree with other reviewers that an aluminum case would've been nice, the included plastic case should be plenty durable to use the old drive as a backup device. Overall, a very good product.
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Strengths: Incredibly easy to use. Can be used to create external drive with secondary drive.
Weakness: None
This product is incredibly easy to use, even for a novice like myself. Quickly and easily made a copy of my old drive which I was able to switch out with the new drive. Then you can use the old drive as an external drive. If I had known about this product I probably would have changed out my hard drive earlier.
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Strengths: Easy to use--plug and play in windows xp. Detailed and easy to follow instruction booklet included in box.
Weakness: None so far.
Made a perfect clone copy of my notebook hard drive. Best to use the included AC adapter to insure uniform power during the clone procedure. You can use your old hard drive as a secondary external drive by using the same enclosure--this easy procedure is also described in the instructions. The best way to upgrade your slow hard drive to a fast 7200 and not lose any data.
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Weakness: Had to search a few forums to get thinkpad-specific instructions.
This went a lot easier than I expected. Bought this to upgrade an IBM Thinkpad t41 from 30G to 80G using a Seagate hard drive. It helps to run CHKDSK first! After that, I disabled the protected area using the BIOS, powered down, removed the old hard drive from the thinkpad, placed that one in the Apricorn enclosure, installed the new drive in the thinkpad, hooked up all the cables, powered on the external drive (FIRST...this is key) and then the laptop, booting to the Apricorn DVD. Cloning from external (old) to internal (new) took much less time than I thought it would, and when it was done, I powered off, unhooked the external drive, and booted the laptop...flawless. XP and all my data, right there. Couldn't ask for better, and now I have a 30G backup drive.
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Strengths: Easy to use: Plug and Play on XP and 2000.
Weakness: May be fragile - I don't know if one of the 2 I have was broken during shipping or if it broke later. I'm generaly careful with equipment.
I'm a PC technician and have been using the ez upgrade since they first came out. I haven't used the included software, just the 2.5 inch HD adapter for moving files off messed up drives before format and reinstall. It has been very easy and reliable.
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My notebook HD intermittantly failed to boot. It took less than 2 hours to create the clone and replace the failing drive. Brilliant and easy to use. Better than simply doing backups. No more days and tedious hours spent reinstalling Windows or my software.
Apricorn EZ Upgrade Universal Hard Drive Upgrade Kit
Strengths: easy to install 2.5" HD inside, solid performance
Weakness: case is made by plastic
Bought this package from Fry's since I have bought other Apricorn external HD cases before and their Cypress USB2.0 chip set never gave me any trouble to connect to either XP or Linux. Although I was a bit disappointed when found out the case is made by plastic.
It comes with a USB cable and a USB power cable. This power cable is to send extra power to case+HD. I have a 30G/4200rpm drive and 40G/5400rpm drive, and I need to connect them to a Dell 600m notebook PC. It turns out the 30G Hitachi (5V/0.7A) drive needs to use this power cable (and took out all my 2 ports on 600m) but the 40G drive (Seagate) needs only one USB cable.
When installing your HD, be careful not to bend the LED on the case.
I didn't use the enclosed backup software since I have Norton Ghost.
In my quest to find out the solution to copy my hard drive content exactly how it is I ran into this product; i did not test it it yet completely but I am assured it will work flawlessly as I know some people that are using it successfully
Strengths: Disk cloning software is very good, easy to install the drive
Weakness: USB cable and power cable
It's very easy to use, it took me only 30 minutes to put in my new harddrive and used the included software to clone the old disk completely.
The problem I had was on my Dell inspiron 8600 the USB port could provide enough power. I had to switch to a new Dell D620 laptop to do the cloning. I guess that's more of my laptop's issue.
I don't like the USB cable. It's the traditional big connector not the mini one. It also requires a seperate USB-DC cable. Now I have to carry two more cables with me. If it uses the mini USB, I already have it with me all the time.
Strengths: small, easy to use, no size restriction on drive capacity like others on the market, backup software included and relatively inexpensive.
Weakness: not an aluminum enclosure like many others (plastic that looks like metal)
After researching the best solution for upgrading a hard drive and getting an enclosure for the old drive at the same time, this is hard to beat. We will see though how over time the plastic enclosure will hold up. Although I have not availed myself of such, apparently, the tech support is supposed to be great.
an easy way to apply extra storage to your laptop, to make an exact copy of your drive for drive upgrade or to create a compressed backup image for restoring purposes.
Worth it for the software alone!
Strengths: Fast and easy to upgrade a hard drive and change partition sizes at the same time.
Weakness: Plastic case may not be durable enough for travel use as an extra external hard drive.
Needed to upgrade a Dell Latitude D600 from a 40GB to 80GB internal hard drive. Original drive was partitioned into C: and D: partitions, and the C: (System) partition needed to be enlarged on the new drive. The EZ Gig II software included with the kit allows you to proportionately increase the size of the existing partitions, or manually control the new sizes using a user-friendly graphical interface. Included 25-page manual is adequate, and worth reading before proceeding. Was able to complete the upgrade using only USB bus power (i.e., without using an external A/C power supply) -- should you need an A/C power supply, you can order directly from Apricorn for $10, which includes ground shipping. Called tech support to check the power specs for an external adapter and reached a tech in 7 minutes, which I consider reasonable. Otherwise, no tech help was needed. Total time from opening the box to physically swapping the drives was much less than 1 hour; just 38 minutes to clone the drive containing 30GB of data. While I agree with other reviewers that an aluminum case would've been nice, the included plastic case should be plenty durable to use the old drive as a backup device. Overall, a very good product.
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