Enclosure kit (internal HD to external USB) questions for 30GB hard drive

[Tim923]

I currently have a 40GB hard drive. The computer is the slim tower
design and I don't see room for a 2nd hard drive unless I remove the
DVD-R drive. I have an old 30GB drive from my old computer. And
70GBs would be nice. Does anyone have any recommendations on which
enclosure kit (case) to buy? I think eBay had some $30 packages. Are
they good? What jumper pin settings would I use (slave, master, cable
select, none)? Thanks. --Tim923

 

[Joe Seigh]

I currently have a 40GB hard drive. The computer is the slim tower
design and I don't see room for a 2nd hard drive unless I remove the
DVD-R drive. I have an old 30GB drive from my old computer. And
70GBs would be nice. Does anyone have any recommendations on which
enclosure kit (case) to buy? I think eBay had some $30 packages. Are
they good? What jumper pin settings would I use (slave, master, cable
select, none)? Thanks. --Tim923

They're all mostly crap. No one OEMs them so you can't go by brand name
even if you found one particular model that was decent. Some of the
online vendors are pretty good about listing chipsets so you can at
least cover that aspect. You probably won't find that info on ebay.

The mechanical design is the worst part of the enclosures. Most are
pretty flimsey. You want something that is rugged enough for portability,
probably not too much of an issue in your case. You may want a fan for
ventilation if you are going to leave the disk on for extended amount of
time. Small fans tend to be whiney and noisy though. An on/off switch
on the enclosure would be nice. Turning it on and off by plugging and
unplugging the power cord seems a bit dodgey. Those power bricks seem
to be a wild card. No one knows where they come from. IIRC you can
destroy a hard drive with an inadequate power supply. Some of the larger
5 1/2" and multibay enclosures have built in power supplies. Loud fans
on the multibays.

I have some old 5 1/2" ADS enclosures which you can't get anymore which
seem to work okay. Noisy though.

I just got a 3 1/2" Kingwin (the one with knurled thumbscrews on the corners).
It has a tiny quiet fan though no input air vents. Disk and fan indicator
leds. On/off switch w/ external power brick. Really flimsey side panels
though so you want to be careful how you pick it up. Not good for a portable
drive. Only two mounting holes on the bottom for mounting the drive. So
also not good for portablility. It would have blown their profit margin to
punch two extra holes and supply two extra mounting screws.

3 1/2" Sabrent (never of heard of them and it's probably not an OEM name).
Nice rugged aluminum case but that's the only nice thing about it. Standard
connector on a USB device is a USB B female socket. This uses a USB A female.
USB A-A cables are non standard and retail around $40. Which was a problem
since mine seemed to have not come with a cable and the vendor seems to have
developed a hearing problem. Fortunately I found an inexpensive adapter to
convert a B male to an A male. Also it uses some mangled splinters of metal
that are alleged to be screws. And no on/off switch. So stay away from this one.

The new FireXpress look really nice. They're not out yet so I can't say anything
about it. It's completely different than current FireXpress enclosures.
FireXpress is a brand. The models probably have different OEMs so like
any other brand, one model could be great and another could be crap.

 

[Rod Speed]

They're all mostly crap. No one OEMs them so you can't go by brand name
even if you found one particular model that was decent. Some of the
online vendors are pretty good about listing chipsets so you can at
least cover that aspect. You probably won't find that info on ebay.

The mechanical design is the worst part of the enclosures. Most are
pretty flimsey. You want something that is rugged enough for portability,
probably not too much of an issue in your case. You may want a fan for
ventilation if you are going to leave the disk on for extended amount of
time. Small fans tend to be whiney and noisy though. An on/off switch
on the enclosure would be nice. Turning it on and off by plugging and
unplugging the power cord seems a bit dodgey. Those power bricks seem
to be a wild card. No one knows where they come from. IIRC you can
destroy a hard drive with an inadequate power supply. Some of the larger
5 1/2" and multibay enclosures have built in power supplies. Loud fans
on the multibays.

I have some old 5 1/2" ADS enclosures which you can't get anymore which
seem to work okay. Noisy though.

I just got a 3 1/2" Kingwin (the one with knurled thumbscrews on the corners).
It has a tiny quiet fan though no input air vents. Disk and fan indicator
leds. On/off switch w/ external power brick. Really flimsey side panels
though so you want to be careful how you pick it up. Not good for a portable
drive. Only two mounting holes on the bottom for mounting the drive. So
also not good for portablility. It would have blown their profit margin to
punch two extra holes and supply two extra mounting screws.

3 1/2" Sabrent (never of heard of them and it's probably not an OEM name).
Nice rugged aluminum case but that's the only nice thing about it. Standard
connector on a USB device is a USB B female socket. This uses a USB A female.
USB A-A cables are non standard and retail around $40.

Oh bullshit.

 

[Joe Seigh]

Oh bullshit.

Well, the TrippLite U232-006 has a suggested retail price of $39.99. You can
get it discounted at PCConnection for $34.45. Though I noticed buy.com has
it for $24 something. Zones has it for $86.99. USB A-A is not a common cable
so when you do find it, it won't be as heavily discounted as the regular USB A-B
cables which can be gotten for a few dollars if you know the places who won't
charge an arm and a leg for shipping. I actually found a 2 ft USB A-A noname,
probably USB 1.0, cable for $2. It works more or less, though 2 ft is on the
short side.

 

[Joe Doe]

I currently have a 40GB hard drive. The computer is the slim tower
design and I don't see room for a 2nd hard drive unless I remove the
DVD-R drive. I have an old 30GB drive from my old computer. And
70GBs would be nice. Does anyone have any recommendations on which
enclosure kit (case) to buy? I think eBay had some $30 packages. Are
they good? What jumper pin settings would I use (slave, master, cable
select, none)? Thanks. --Tim923

I recently bought a Nexstar 3 by Vantec. Looks good and It uses passive
cooling and on a 5400 rpm 80 GB drive was quite warm to the touch on the
outside. Because of the inability to dissipate heat on a relatively
slow drive I gave it back. I would look for an enclosure with a fan
but they are likely to be noisy.


I noticed that Seagate offers only a one year warranty for their
external USB drive kits (normal internal drive warranty is 5 years).
This gave me a clue that even they expect the anticipated life to be
short perhaps because of shock caused by drive handling or heat. That
was sufficient for me to give up the idea of using the drive as external
backup - I felt it would only be suitable for a scratch disk and not
really reliable enough for a backup device or anything important.

You might want to consider a notebook drive and external case because
they may be built for rougher handling.

Roland

 

[Rod Speed]

Well, the TrippLite U232-006 has a suggested retail price of $39.99. You can
get it discounted at PCConnection for $34.45. Though I noticed buy.com has
it for $24 something. Zones has it for $86.99. USB A-A is not a common cable

Its common enough, tho certainly less common than an AB

so when you do find it, it won't be as heavily discounted as the regular USB
A-B cables which can be gotten for a few dollars if you know the places who
won't charge an arm and a leg for shipping.

Just as true of AAs.

I actually found a 2 ft USB A-A noname, probably USB 1.0, cable for $2. It
works more or less, though 2 ft is on the short side.

It aint the only cheap AA cable around.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=usb+a-a+-charger

 

[Joe Seigh]

It aint the only cheap AA cable around.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=usb+a-a+-charger

That's a qood query for USB AA male/female extension cable. You got
one that works for USB AA male/male cables?

 

[Rod Speed]

That's a qood query for USB AA male/female extension cable. You got one that
works for USB AA male/male cables?

There's plenty of those in that list. And in
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=usb+a-a+-charger+-extension+mm

 

[Joe Seigh]

There's plenty of those in that list. And in
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=usb+a-a+-charger+-extension+mm

Thanks. If I ever switch to using cheap noname USB cables, I'll keep it
in mind. Right now the cheap noname USB cables that typically come
with USB enclosures are the ones I throw out, not buy.

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks. If I ever switch to using cheap noname USB cables, I'll keep it in
mind. Right now the cheap noname USB cables that typically come with USB
enclosures are the ones I throw out, not buy.

More fool you. They work fine. It aint rocket science.

 

[Joe Seigh]

More fool you. They work fine. It aint rocket science.

They work fine. It's how fine. A cheap cable won't necesarrily
fail outright. They just run slightly degraded. I don't have the
test equipement to test them so I'll stick with the better quality cables.
I've dealt with enough cheap cable problems as it is. Anyway the main
reason I throw them out (actually quarantine) is they're that cheap clear
PVC that's likely to ooze plasticizer out after a while and once that
plasticizer gets on stuff, nothing takes it off except maybe zylene
which has the unfortunate tendency to disolve the thing you're trying
to remove the plasticizer from unless it's bare metal. I've already
had a bunch of older cables go that route. I'm seeing how the newer
ones will go. Anyway we're getting OT here. You seem pretty
knowlegable. Why don't you help answer the OP's question.

 

[Rod Speed]

They work fine. It's how fine.

They work as well as the branded products.

A cheap cable won't necesarrily fail outright. They just run slightly
degraded.

Bullshit they do.

I don't have the test equipement to test them so I'll stick with the better
quality cables.

You dont need test equipment to test them,
just like you dont with ribbon cables either.

I've dealt with enough cheap cable problems as it is.

You havent got enough of a clue to be able to
say that the problems were due to the cable.

Anyway the main reason I throw them out (actually quarantine) is they're that
cheap clear PVC

Most of them arent even clear PVC.

that's likely to ooze plasticizer out after a while and once that
plasticizer gets on stuff, nothing takes it off except maybe zylene
which has the unfortunate tendency to disolve the thing you're trying to
remove the plasticizer from unless it's bare metal.

How odd that none of mine have oozed at all.

I've already had a bunch of older cables go that route.

How odd that none of mine have oozed at all.

I'm seeing how the newer ones will go.

How odd that none of mine have oozed at all.

Anyway we're getting OT here.
Nope.

You seem pretty knowlegable. Why don't you help answer the OP's question.

Dont have anything useful to add to what has already been provided.

I did have something useful to add to your stupid pig ignorant
claim about systems that need an AA MM USB cable.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

I currently have a 40GB hard drive. The computer is
the slim tower design and I don't see room for a 2nd
hard drive unless I remove the DVD-R drive. I have
an old 30GB drive from my old computer. And 70GBs
would be nice. Does anyone have any recommendations
on which enclosure kit (case) to buy? I think eBay
had some $30 packages. Are they good? What jumper
pin settings would I use (slave, master, cable
select, none)?

If there's a Fry's Electronics in your area and you have room for a
bigger case, check out their Antec SK1600 w/ 300W PSU for $15 after
rebate, through Tuesday. It's a mid-tower case measuring about 17"
from front to back and with five 3.5" drive bays (2 exposed), 3 exposed
5.25" bays, and front USB sockets.

Fry's is also featuring an 80GB IOmega USB 2,9 drive for $50. I don't
remember if it's USB-only or also has Firewire, but I can't imagine any
aftermarket making the internal IDE drive run any hotter than the
IOmega does. Look for a case that has lots of vent holes, can be
mounted vertically (can help coolinga lot), andcan handle an HD
capacitor greater than 137 GB.

If you don't have USB 2.0, you'll need an adapter card, and companies
like Acortech have them for as little as $8, delivered. Be sure the
card uses either an NEC brand USB 2.0 chip (large, square) or at least
the VIA VT6212 chip (oblong, but avoid the VIA VT6202 chip). NEC-based
cards are available for $10-12 from some dealers listed at
PriceWatch.com, but one company there, Alpha International Business,
advertises NEC but delivers VIA.