It comes with an external power adaptor, a Y USB Connector cable and a small allen key to open the device to change the drives etc., it also has two extra USB 2.0 ports so you can connect extra peripherals via the netdock.


It states on the box that it is compatible with Mac OS, Windows and Linux, and it worked with all my devices with no issues.  For all my devices except for my Macbook Pro I was able to run this just using the USB cable provided. 


For my model of macbook pro I had to use the power adaptor as the two USB ports on the model I have are not next to each other they are on opposite sides, the recent macbooks and macbook pros all have two USB slots together.


The devices I used to test this was :


  1. •Acer Aspire one running Windows XP

  2. •Macbook Pro

  3. •Asus eeepc 701 running Debian


On all three machines it mounted the hard drive with no problems, straight away I could easily read and write to the hard drive, very handy to have additional space especially with the eeepc which comes with a very small hard drive. 


The thing I like about this device over a standard external usb cd drive is that fact that you can sit your netbook on top of the device and still be portable, it is a thin device and very lightweight so you can easily carry this around with you, also the fact that it will run from the usb bus it incredibly handy, as you won’t need to carry the additional power supply.


I did have a couple of issues while burning CD’s using this device, this may of been down to a flaky drive, I was told this was one of the first trial units before they are released.  The first time I could write a CD with no issues but occasionally it would not be able to write to the CD/DVD’s.  I did check the media in other writers and they could be read fine, so I am putting it down to being a temperamental drive in the trial unit I have.


Overall I do like this device, it would serve a purpose, having the unit with both a HDD and the DVD/RW Drive can be handy when wanting to still travel light and not have to lug around a full size laptop.  I have used this on many occasions when I only have my eeepc with me as I find the extra space incredibly handy.  Plus you always have the ability to up the capacity of the drive if you ever required more disk space.


You can purchase the empty enclosure for as little as £24.99 from Amazon, or with just a DVDRW Drive for £56.96 or one with a DVD/RW Drive and a 500Gb HDD for £119.99.  Links for all three can be found below


As always I am always interested in feedback so feel free to add any comments here