USB and Firewire Drive Enclosures - will they support 500-750 GB IDE drives ??

[kevin]

I have been researching external Hard Drive Enclosures for a few dyas
now. I see some sites where the vendor says "Supports drives up to
400 GB !!" or in some cases "up to 360 GB", and others say "500 GB"

I am confused, as to why the limitation. I question whether there
really is a limit but I do not want to buy one and be wrong.

1) I thought maybe it is the dimensions - so I measured. I have a
couple of 500 GB drives and they are just as thick as my 60 GB drives,
at 1 inch !! So it must be something else?

2) I also though that maybe this is a limitation of USB 2.0 ? Or
maybe it is a limitation of the electronics inside the enclosure that
convert the IDE from the Hard Drive to the USB port on the back of the
enclosure. Maybe when you convert from IDE to USB you can address as
many sectors on the drive.

3) or maybe there is NO LIMIT, but the web page ad is just a bit old
and at that time, they simply advertised support for the largest
drives that were available at that time.

So basically what I really need to know is this:

1) for IDE enclosures with USB 2.0 ports - will they support the
newer large drives (500 GB, 750 GB, and soon to be available, 1 TB)

2) ditto question for Firewire 400

3) ditto question for Firewire 800

 

[kevin]

Here is a sample:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=312100

The ad says "Supports a Hard Drive Up To 400GB". It seems that if it
supports 400 GB, that it would also support 500 GB, but not according
to the ad.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have been researching external Hard Drive Enclosures for a few dyas
now. I see some sites where the vendor says "Supports drives up to
400 GB !!" or in some cases "up to 360 GB", and others say "500 GB"

I am confused, as to why the limitation. I question whether there
really is a limit but I do not want to buy one and be wrong.

Its never been very clear what is going on there and I havent been in a situation
where its easy to check and see if it does handle bigger than they claim fine.

1) I thought maybe it is the dimensions - so I measured.
I have a couple of 500 GB drives and they are just as thick
as my 60 GB drives, at 1 inch !! So it must be something else?

Correct, they're all the same physical sized with 3.5" drives.

2.5" laptop drives do vary in thickness.

2) I also though that maybe this is a limitation of USB 2.0 ?

Nope, because there are some that do 1TB now.

Or maybe it is a limitation of the electronics inside the enclosure that convert
the IDE from the Hard Drive to the USB port on the back of the enclosure.

Thats always a possibility but seems unlikely to produce the variety of sizes
you do see quoted. It looks more likely that thats the biggest they actually tried.

Maybe when you convert from IDE to USB you
can address as many sectors on the drive.

Nope, doesnt explain the 1TB drives.

3) or maybe there is NO LIMIT, but the web page ad
is just a bit old and at that time, they simply advertised
support for the largest drives that were available at that time.

Yeah, that's the most likely IMO. In other words, the manufacture doesnt say
and they tried the biggest that was handy and cited that when it worked fine.

So basically what I really need to know is this:

1) for IDE enclosures with USB 2.0 ports - will they support the
newer large drives (500 GB, 750 GB, and soon to be available, 1 TB)

There are already a few that are 1TB, done with a pair
of drives in the enclosure, so it cant be a USB2 limitation.

2) ditto question for Firewire 400

3) ditto question for Firewire 800

Since you see the same problem with those, its unlikely to be due to
a technical limitation with the chip, much more likely the practical problem
that the housing manufacturer didnt bother to say what size drive it can take.
Those are usually supplied by the manufacturers with a pathetic level of
documentation which doesnt even say how the drive should be jumpered.

 

[kevin]

Thanks Rod - very helpful. I ended up getting this enclosure:
http://www.cooldrives.com/copr0fi80ald.html
It is a Firewire 800 only (no USB) dual HD with RAID 0 (which I will
not use), dual fans, and a nice brushed aluminum look. It is the
smallest I found at only 2.5 inches thick and was on sale for $119