FirmTek miniSwap/U3

The Ultimate Bus Powered, Trayless, Hot-Swap, 2.5-Inch USB 3.0 Enclosure for Mac and PC

Instantly Mount SSD or 2.5" SATA HDD
No tray required, just insert a bare SSD or 2.5" SATA hard drive and close the bay door!

Portability and High Performance
The miniSwap/U3 is a revolutionary new product designed to meet the needs of computer professionals on the go. This new, bus-powered, data storage device offers performance as high as 440MB/s, which is more than twice the speed of typical USB 3.0 enclosures. The miniSwap/U3 is compatible with the new 5 Gbit/s USB 3.0 ports found on 2012 MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini and iMac while also backward compatible with legacy USB 2.0 ports. The small size of the miniSwap/U3 allows it to be held in the palm of your hand or transported easily in a small computer case. At less than one pound, the miniSwap/U3 offers more performance power for its size than any other FirmTek product. FirmTek customers who enjoy the power of SSD and the portability and quiet operation of 2.5" storage devices will appreciate the miniSwap/U3.

While the miniSwap supports many different 2.5-inch disk capacities, with a single 1TB SATA HDD installed, the miniSwap can hold up to 84 hours of HDV 1080i, 17 hours of DVCPRO HD 1080/60i or 10 hours of ProRes 422 HQ. Huge storage capacity plus an ultra small footprint makes the miniSwap a great travel companion for photographers and video professionals. The durable silver aluminum miniSwap/U3 looks great with the Apple computers and excels with audio/video editing, computer animation, digital photography, portable computing, storage expansion, backup and any application where external, trayless, hot swap, high performance data storage is desirable.

Low Noise, Energy Efficient Design
The air-cooled miniSwap design is able to protect the disk using a built-in enhanced airflow system. Heat generated around the bottom and sides of the drive dissipates through the well-vented aluminum enclosure. This process offers the ultimate in quiet operation. Just slide in the drive, close the bay door and your data is ready to be accessed. This simple, yet robust mounting feature allows photographers and audio-video professionals to mount drives even in low light conditions, whether in the field or in the office, without the need for tools. The miniSwap trayless design offers support for 2.5" disk heights of 7mm, 9.5mm and even larger disks up to 14.9mm.

Quality Craftsmanship
FirmTek is known for innovative backplane designs with no internal SATA cabling. The miniSwap is no exception. This feature maximizes signal strength and enhances EMI protection, which increases reliability. The miniSwap product line is built from the ground up, using only our very best storage ideas.

Amazing Performance and Virtually Unlimited Capacity
The new circuitry built into every miniSwap/U3 supports ultra high bandwidth applications. Customers have reported performance results as high as 443MB/s read and 433MB/s write with a single 6G SSD configuration and 636MB/s read and 788MB/s write with two miniSwap/U3 enclosures setup in a RAID 0 configuration on the 2012 MacBook Pro and iMac. The ability to effortlessly insert or eject the drive mounted in the miniSwap enclosure makes it a favorite among photographers and video professionals who use different drives for different customer projects. This advanced feature provides virtually unlimited data storage capacity.

Instant SSD Boot Drive Upgrade - Mac OS X
Trying to open the latest iMac or Mac mini to upgrade to an SSD boot drive is time consuming, expensive and may void the Apple warranty. Instead, simply connect the miniSwap/U3 to enjoy the amazing fast boot speed of SSD. Save money by using a standard SSD to boot the 2012 Mac mini, iMac, Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. No need to purchase an expensive non-standard SSD or special tools - just connect the U3 to boot from your favorite 2.5" SSD. Whether you need additional storage, Time Machine backup, bootable backup or simply a faster system the miniSwap/U3 does it all - with instant SSD/HDD mounting.

Surface Pro High-Speed Storage Expansion
Microsoft's Surface Pro tablets come in two storage capacities, 64GB and 128GB, but for most customers this is not enough. A flash drive can add a little extra storage, but the miniSwap/U3 offers performance more than 400% faster than typical USB 3.0 flash drives and virtually unlimited storage capacity. Hot swap drives in and out of the miniSwap/U3 for superior flexibility, high-performance (up to 400MB/s) and high-capacity large drive support. The small form factor of the miniSwap/U3 makes it an outstanding portable accessory for Surface Pro owners.

Package Contents

One miniSwap/U3 enclosure
One USB 3.0 cable with Micro-B connector
Four rubber feet
One CD-ROM containing the miniSwap/U3 User Manual