USB 2.0 External HDD Enclosure

[madmaca]

Hey guys! I am looking for a way to convert one of my HDDs into an external USB2.0 type jobby. The obvious way that strikes me is to buy a USB2.0 External HDD Enclosure. Has anyone got any recommendations? Needs to be fairly cheap. Or is there a better way to do this?

Cheers,

madmaca.

[DaBeeeenster]

I have a firewire enclosure which I use with my laptop. Works perfectly and is very fast indeed...

[Aaron]

Ebuyer sell one for around £50.

It's a brand name so it shouldn't be too bad and it can be used with CD-drives as well as HDs.

[joshwa]

you could try ebay as well.

[Gubs]

Gladiator Computers (who I've never used) do some cheaper ones (which I don't know anything about), made by Mentor (who I've never heard of) - link. Not sure if that really counts as a 'recomendation' or not, but it's cheap

[madmaca]

Thanks for the info guys - keep 'em coming!

madmaca.

[daverobev]

www.modecomputing.com

Got a FW 3.5 and a 5.25 box from them; not given me any trouble on my iBook. 3.5 is verrry fast too, compared to the internal hdd...

[VladTheImpaler]

I have sold Mentor 2.5" HDD USB enclosures. They are cheap and they work very well. I can recommend them.

[Enverex]

The best thing to do is use a 2.5" drive if you want to use an enclosure, as 2.5" drives in enclosures don't need an external power supply and will just power themselves through the single cable connected to the USB port, the same applies if you use a full size 6pin firewire port (the normal almost rectangle ones). But if you use a 3.5" in a 3.5" or 5.25" enclosure then that requires you plugging that enclosure into the mains as well as plugging it into the PC/Laptop, which could be a problem. Note that also the mini-Firewire ports normally found on laptops are not powered, so you will need to find some type of alternate powering method for powering the drive. My external 2.5" enclosure actually came with a cable that allows you to plug it into the PS/2 port (and creates a passthrough) and actually gets enough power from the PS/2 port to power the drive (so it can be used with an unpowered firewire port).

The actual drive I have is the USB2/Firewire 2.5" enclosure from Mode-Computing as well, so I can swear for their quality. Nice cases.

USB1/2 drive enclosures also work flawlessly with Linux and just show up as a SCSI drive in the system (i.e. sda).

USB2 is nicer to use as it acts as a bridge in Windows and gives you full information on the drive and it shows up asif the drive was actually conected to the ATA interface and gives you the full serial information too, where as Firewire is faster, but acts more like an external interface rather than a bridge.

Just some things to take note of.

NS

[madmaca]

Thanks for the info - looks like the 2.5" drive method is the way to go.

madmaca.