Ant wrote:
Paul wrote:

Years ago, there was an "epidemic" of cheap USB
to three-drive-flavor adapters, where the power
adapter was just plain bad. The responsible companies
eventually figured out this was bad for business
(blowing up customer drives and such).

I've not seen a bad 12V adapter here (yet).

There was a time, probably close to 20 years ago,
when drive enclosures used a four pin power connector
(circular DIN). Somebody decided it was more fun to
do a 12V only adapter (barrel connector), then have
the controller board in the enclosure convert the
12V to 5V. I don't know which scheme is more dangerous.
Fortunately, in 2018, the controller board in the
enclosure uses a switcher rather than a linear regulator
(7805 etc) for the 5V output. It could be a "buck"
converter (as a buck doesn't do isolation, and
isolation isn't needed for DC to DC cases
like this one).

How does one know which brands are good and bad? The reviews and ratings
like on Amazon?


The reviews on both Amazon and Newegg are degraded by
mixing up reviews from different things.

Some care is required, to collect review data
for a particular item.

I don't think there's a problem in 2018, but
there was wide-spread dissatisfaction years
ago, due to the wall adapters being poorly made.
It might have been the "bad cap" era, but I
think there was more to it than that. Too
many corners were being cut.

Nobody with the bad adapters was sawing them
open for a look. So we have no data.

Paul