Porch Enclosure

I’ve got a run of the mill disk enclosure that connects to my PC via USB, and has its own AC power adapter. In the interest of conservation, I’d like to replace this enclosure with one that gets all its power from my PC, so that when it goes into standby or shuts down, the external drive will also. I recognize that a standard USB connection doesn’t provide sufficient power; would it require a dual-USB connection? Doesn Firewire provide more power?

it has to be a 2.5 inch enclosure with a laptop hardrive(2.5inch)

I have a 3.5" IDE hard drive enclosure (USB), and I know normal IDE cables can connect 2 drives to one IDE controller slot on a motherboard. Is it possible to do the same with the controller card in my enclosure, by swapping out the tiny little cable with a normal one?

You can try, but it may not have enough power to run both and would actually be harmful to the drives in the end.

or it just downgrade to 5400 rpm?
or worse, not working at all?

If you have USB 2.0, you’ll get very good speeds.

Does the drive that goes in it need to be the same power or rpm and GB as the internal hard drive, so as to run correctly?

Is it ok if the external is IDE and the internal is SATA?

Thanks.

makes no difference. Plug it in and use it.

i ahve a i/o magic usb 2.0 for 3.5 hard drive enclosure but at the tim ei got ididnt know it would not work with vista is there any way to make it work with vista….i would return but i got in december of 07 and only open it once plz help me

it should work with vista but you may need a driver check with the company web site

My old PC’s mainboard doesn’t support SATA hdd. I want to take data from an laptop’s hard disk (SATA) via an HDD enclosure (usb port). But when I plug in, nothing happen. I wonder if it is possible?

sata drives in enclosures need more power than the old ide drives and more than a usb port can support even with its own power supply, either get a usb cable with two usb connectors on one end or sometimes plugging the cable into the pc first then into the enclosure works as the power is in the cable and there is less delay in booting the drive

I have one of these:
http://www.coolmaxusa.com/productDetails.asp?item=HD-250B-U2&details=overview&subcategory=U2&category=2.5SATA

A USB mass storage enclosure. I’ve been using it for 4 months and I already installed the driver.
Someone in my house dropped it and now, whenever I connect it, it make 4 or 5 skipping sounds and then it turns off.
Then, it turns back on, but the computer never acts like it’s plugged it.
I does make the sound of something being plugged in and out when it turns on and off, but I can’t browse the files.
What would you recommend?
God no… Oh, fuck!

The magnetic needle has scratched the discs on the hard drive. That drive is now dead! Buy a new drive.

this may seem stupid but i bought this product and thought that it was gone a be with the cd thingy but guess not its just a case. i want to returned it but i want to learn how to use it if not then i will returned it after ward. please somone help me

external DVD drive/burner?
all you need to do is plug the cable into the USB port and the device should auto-install the drivers

I have an old 3.5 desktop hard drive and am planning on using it as an external hard drive for my macbook using a usb enclosure. The only problem is that desktop hard drive enclosures have ac adaptors and you have to plug it in.
I am looking for one with power through the usb cable or with a battery or something to not make it have to plug in.I am looking for an inexpensive one by the way. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Sorry mate but it’s only 2.5 inch hard drives that can be powered through a USB port, and then it’s not all of them. The power requirements of 3.5 inch drives makes it impractical. That’s why they have an external power source that needs plugging in.

for extra laptop storage

What you’re looking to get out of your hard drive should answer this question. The primary question I think is this: what’s more important, portability or price?

If you want something that can still potentially fit in your pocket, go with a 2.5", hands down. I’ve used one for over 5 years now (120GB lol) and it’s been extremely useful for backing up data as I primarily use a laptop. I’m fairly sure they’ve hit TB even in this form factor, but the price will definitely be higher than that of an external hard drive.

As for external hard drives, they are certain to be cheaper than the 2.5" ones for the same size, but I believe they require you to carry a power cable. I don’t know if there are new ones out there that don’t require an external AC source, but the ones that I’ve seen do. We keep two of these in the house with the desktops for backup purposes.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to how you’ll use this hard drive. If you want to bring it with you wherever you go, get a 2.5" one. If you want a beast of a hard drive to store everything under the sun (or a lot of HD videos), I’d suggest an external hard drive. The 2.5" drives will be slightly more expensive, but they are certainly worth it in terms of portability.

Hope that helps!

Just an afterthought… depending on how you use your drives, it may not be worth your while investing in the 1TB drives. Since I’m not a traveller away from home for long periods of time, I prefer to have many smaller drives rather than 1 big drive. For daily use, I usually carry a 16GB memory stick instead of a hard drive. That way if I lose it, it’s significantly cheaper to replace and less data is lost. If I need more than that, I take a 60GB 2.5" drive before the bigger ones for the same reason. It’s convenient having 1TB with you at all times, but it’s also a huge hassle if anything happens to it.