External Hard Drive Enclosure

[Darkness]

Hi All,

I'm after an external hard drive enclusre for a 2.5" SATA harddrive, I can find lots however they all require 2 USB ports, i wondered if anyone knew of 1 that only requires 1 USB port


Thanks
Kevin

 

[muckshifter]

I think you are confusing USB2.0 (USB second generation) verse USB1.0/1.1 with having 2 physical ports ... I ain't seen very many caddies that actually have 2 USB ports.

USB 2 (look for the words "high speed") allows a very fast data transfer between the computer and external device, round 480Mbps as compared with USB 1.0/1.1 at 12Mbps, just what you need for data transfer.

Look out for USB 3.0 it raises the data rate to 4.8 Gbps, a 10x increase.

 

[Darkness]

I think you might have misunderstood. They have 1 port on the caddie but the came with a 'Y' cable so require 2 ports on a computer. The caddies for IDE seem to only require 1 USB port on a computer but SATA seems to require 2.

 

[Me__2001]

the reason for the second port is to provide the drive with power, 2.5" drives are aimed at being portable so having to carry around a power pack all the time and then having to find a plug isn't really practical if you're on the move

 

[Electronics & Photo Fan]

I think the reason they require 2 USB ports is because they need two lots of power (each plug can only draw 500mA). I've seen lots of 3.5" caddies that have two USB plugs, but I haven't seen any 2.5" caddies that can be powered from only one port.

 

[Darkness]

I guessed this was the case. I just know you can get 2.5" IDE caddies which require just 1 socket, i wasnt sure if SATA would run on 1 or not

 

[Me__2001]

they would work but would require a seperate power cable, you may be able to get them but i have never seen one with just one USB connector