Unabashed commercial endorsement

[Chief Suspect]

www.sewelldirect.com Part# SW-1321

I just ordered one of these thingies for $35.00 delivered.

It consists of two pieces: An IDE/USB cable and a Power Xfmr

Affix the power cable to ANY IDE product .. raw hard drive, raw
CD/DVDROM (even burners) .. really: any IDE device right out of the box.
Affix the IDE plug to the device and plug the other end into any
available USB socket on your computer.

This is the cheapest, quickest setup to gain use of an external
hard drive or CD/DVD burner. At CompUSA, a powered shell to fit
a drive inside costs at least $35.00, and then you are stuck with
a closed box with ONE drive in it. This may be slightly unsightly
sitting on your computer desk, but then you can interchange ANY
spare HD in seconds, including any CD/DVDROM drive. They all
become external portables. Talk about small and easy to handle
for fitting in your laptop case!! Oh yeah .. it also comes with
converter socket enabling you to accommodate any spare 2.5 inch
laptop drive.

 

[kony]

You might consider using a subject line that actually
describes the post contents. Generally it's considered spam
to post such topics too- Note that everyone else doesn't
post threads for the gear they have that _does_ work
properly.

I just ordered one of these thingies for $35.00 delivered.

It consists of two pieces: An IDE/USB cable and a Power Xfmr

Affix the power cable to ANY IDE product .. raw hard drive, raw
CD/DVDROM (even burners) .. really: any IDE device right out of the box.
Affix the IDE plug to the device and plug the other end into any
available USB socket on your computer.

This is the cheapest,

No, you can find them almost anywhere for $35, cheapest is a
tad under $20, for example
http://www.pcimicro.com/.sc/ms/dd/1...9/Generic USB To IDE Adapter Cable Retail Box
or, pick your favorite store, they're not uncommon.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> kony

You might consider using a subject line that actually
describes the post contents. Generally it's considered spam
to post such topics too- Note that everyone else doesn't
post threads for the gear they have that _does_ work
properly.


No, you can find them almost anywhere for $35, cheapest is a
tad under $20, for example
http://www.pcimicro.com/.sc/ms/dd/1...9/Generic USB To IDE Adapter Cable Retail Box
or, pick your favorite store, they're not uncommon.

Out of curiosity, has anybody ever taken one of these and a removable
drive bay and built a hotswappable removable bay out of the result?

 

[kony]

Out of curiosity, has anybody ever taken one of these and a removable
drive bay and built a hotswappable removable bay out of the result?

No but I"ve done the opposite, I took a drive bay and ripped
the guts out to make one of those... was before there were
any such devices in the market (at least none I could find
at the time).

It should work fine to do that though, but I'd prefer adding
a power-tap to have a quiet fan in the enclosure too. Then
again I've also refitted some old SCSI enclosures for USB2,
this would work for that as well and with the SCSI
enclosures having a fairly robust power supply, the cheap
little switcher that comes with this kit wouldn't be needed
at all.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> kony

No but I"ve done the opposite, I took a drive bay and ripped
the guts out to make one of those... was before there were
any such devices in the market (at least none I could find
at the time).

It should work fine to do that though, but I'd prefer adding
a power-tap to have a quiet fan in the enclosure too. Then
again I've also refitted some old SCSI enclosures for USB2,
this would work for that as well and with the SCSI
enclosures having a fairly robust power supply, the cheap
little switcher that comes with this kit wouldn't be needed
at all.

My removable enclosure already switches off the power -- I'm going to
need to figure out a way to make unlocking the drive for removal also
disconnect the USB adapter though, which adds some complexity to the
system.

However, it still looks more viable then buying a fully hotswappable IDE
drive system, at least at this point.