A Closer Look

The enclosure itself is all black and features an Aluminum housing. Only the ends are made of plastic. An Akasa logo has been embossed into the top, while the underside of the brushed Aluminum shell has no further markings.


Taking a quick look at the smaller sides of the noir S, we can see that tiny black screws are holding each of the plastic covers in place. This is the main reason why Akasa has included a screw driver. You should make sure, not to misplace any of the screws when installing the drive of your choice.


In the back you will find just two plugs. One is intended for the DC in with the afore mentioned USB cable, while the other one is the mini-USB 3.0 connector. Turning the noir S around we have a long strip, which lights up blue when the device is turned on.


As you can see when the unit is disassembled, the rear end cover is attached to the orange PCB. I have also taken off the front cover, but in reality there is absolutely no reason to do so.


I was a bit surprised to see such a large PCB at first. It seems to act as a tray for the hard drive to screw unto. The top is lined with a protective layer as the drive is inserted here and then screwed in place. Turning the printed circuit board around, we can clearly see that all the electronics have been placed here.


The enclosure utilizes a JMicron JMS539 controller, which can also be found within many other USB 3.0 enclosures. You can read up on the "Super Speed USB to SATA II 6.0 Gbps bridge" here. There are three small LEDs on the front edge of the PCB as well. I should note - regardless of which enclosure you have, it seems like the JMS539 won't play nice with some driver versions of the NEC USB 3.0 controller. I had to try out various combinations of drivers and firmware to get everything up and running for this benchmark. This is by no means the fault of Akasa, but of JMicron and/or NEC!