2.5" Drive Enclosure

[gkamieneski]

I am considering building an external 2.5" USB drive unit using one of
those aluminum drive enclosures which are supposedly fanless using the
aluminum as a heat sink. What I'm wondering is how much heat build-up
there would be if I leave this unit always on powered by the USB
connection from my network storage device? I.e., I would be using the
2.5" Drive as a NAS.

 

[Matt Lesnar]

I am considering building an external 2.5" USB drive unit using one of
those aluminum drive enclosures which are supposedly fanless using the
aluminum as a heat sink. What I'm wondering is how much heat build-up
there would be if I leave this unit always on powered by the USB
connection from my network storage device? I.e., I would be using the
2.5" Drive as a NAS.

With a good enclosure and adequate ventilation, I wouldn't worry about
heat. But if you're going to use it like this, why a 2.5" drive? Why
not a 3.5" dive, which would be faster, cheaper, and could give you
greater capacity?

 

[gkamieneski]

I just have a bunch of notebook drives lying around, so in that case
they are cheaper than cheap. They are free. Whatever I buy, perhaps I
will also use as a portable drive as well. The 40Gb or so will be more
than sufficient for a backup of key datafiles or for a webserver.
Thanks.

 

[ohaya]

I am considering building an external 2.5" USB drive unit using one of
those aluminum drive enclosures which are supposedly fanless using the
aluminum as a heat sink. What I'm wondering is how much heat build-up
there would be if I leave this unit always on powered by the USB
connection from my network storage device? I.e., I would be using the
2.5" Drive as a NAS.

Hi,

I've been using an AMS VENUS 2.5" enclosure:

http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productdetails.asp?submit=search&item=17-145-658

since this past Christmas (got it as a gift), and it's been doing fine.
I have an 80GB Hitachi 7K100 drive in it. My son got one also, and he
put his old 30GB Toshiba drive in his when he got a new 7K100 for
Christmas (from me ).

I chose this enclosure because it claims that it'll support up to a
400GB drive (not that I have a 400GB 2.5" drive yet!).

The 2.5" enclosures are nice, because they don't require an additional
power supply/brick. Most (including the AMS) come with two USB cables,
one which you can use to help power the drive (from a 2nd USB port) if
one USB can't power the drive. I'd say that I've had to use the 2nd
cable about 50% of the time, depending on what I'm plugging the drive
into.

Jim

 

[Neill Massello]

I just have a bunch of notebook drives lying around, so in that case
they are cheaper than cheap. They are free. Whatever I buy, perhaps I
will also use as a portable drive as well. The 40Gb or so will be more
than sufficient for a backup of key datafiles or for a webserver.

Be aware that running a 5400rpm or faster drive on USB power can be
iffy.