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External HD Enclosure Question

A

abudhu

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
1,653
Since so many people told me to Buy a normal HD, and Enclose it instead of a stock External HD, here is my question

I am looking to get this HD: Cheap + WD has never let me down in the past:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-102&depa=1

Now I am looking at this enclosure:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-011&depa=0

So my question is, how in the world does it work? I have never used/bought one thse before. Looking at the pic it looks like it works of USB 2, which is fine. But how does the HD connect exactly, especially since the HD works internally with IDE cables? Does it connect internally as an IDE and then convert to a USB cable on the back/outside?

Help a confused guy out :p
 
Yes, it pretty much works like how you said. Inside the external enclosure is an IDE cable (or SATA, if you buy a SATA compatible external enclosure). You then hook your IDE cable into the hard drive, and the data is transferred to/from using the USB cable. I think external enclosures are a great route to go if you want to keep the inside of your PC case from becoming ever hotter considering how hot hard drives get.

I particularily like this external HD case (I have one myself):
Metal Gear Box
 
I just bought a Seagate 160 Gb HDD for video storage and installed it internally on 2nd IDE channel. I'd like to ask if it will run faster if I use a USB enclosure and run it on USB externally. Thanks
 
idoc said:
I just bought a Seagate 160 Gb HDD for video storage and installed it internally on 2nd IDE channel. I'd like to ask if it will run faster if I use a USB enclosure and run it on USB externally. Thanks
Click to expand...

shouldnt.. if any thing slower becuase it has to convert the data from the ide interface to usb and back agin when the data comes back, now usb 2.0 is 400~ mb (thats megabits not megabytes) (and the web sites say 480Mb/s but i have yet to see any device that will acctually transfer above 400 (kinda like 10/100 cat 5 on a windoz pc ... you'll never see 100Mb/s)) so about 50MB/s where as internal headers are 100-133MB for ata and 150MB for sata

in short great for storage, but crappy for speed..

and then theres the pesky animals that live around my house that love to jump on my pc on the way to the window and knock things off of it.. ill keep my HD's in the case where they belong, thanks...

thore
 
This is the one that I have:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-146-174&depa=0

I really like it because you can connect any 5.25" optical drives up to it, and the 3.5" hard drives. Most of the time my burner is in it. I only have one burner, and I can easily burn stuff from all my comps without having to get a burner for each or spending time transferring the burner between each comp. I also have a 20gb hard drive I use when I reformat other people's comps. I can easily backup their data just by connecting it through USB.

I haven't noticed any optical drive speed decrease, but transferring big files takes a lot longer since it's USB.
 
idoc said:
50 MB/s vs 100 MB/s. That answers my question then. Thanks
Click to expand...

Those are theoretical numbers. A single hard drive by itself will never reach either of those numbers, so the connection speed is largely irrelevant.
 
Zamboni said:
Those are theoretical numbers. A single hard drive by itself will never reach either of those numbers, so the connection speed is largely irrelevant.
Click to expand...

correct.... thoughs are the theoretical max of the spec, is is possible to go beyond the spec's as well... when i first set up this rig with the raid array the first program i installed was sandra and benchmarked the drives in a sata 150 raid 0 stripe its not supposed to exceed 150MB/ch and therotical max is 300MB for both, but in reality your lucky to break 250, however i was getting 620MB/s burst and 460MB/s constent read (and no data currption), and i was even smart enought to take a screen cap to prove it, but lost the cap the last time i wiped the PC...

thore
 
ChingChang said:
This is the one that I have:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-146-174&depa=0

I really like it because you can connect any 5.25" optical drives up to it, and the 3.5" hard drives. Most of the time my burner is in it. I only have one burner, and I can easily burn stuff from all my comps without having to get a burner for each or spending time transferring the burner between each comp. I also have a 20gb hard drive I use when I reformat other people's comps. I can easily backup their data just by connecting it through USB.

I haven't noticed any optical drive speed decrease, but transferring big files takes a lot longer since it's USB.
Click to expand...


I have two of those. the fans in both have died and make ungodly noise. I had to swap fans out.

Otherwise they are nice cases.
 
idoc said:
I just bought a Seagate 160 Gb HDD for video storage and installed it internally on 2nd IDE channel. I'd like to ask if it will run faster if I use a USB enclosure and run it on USB externally. Thanks
Click to expand...


No it won't, you'r estill bound by the IDe interface. If anything it will be slower.

Most pro's will reccommend a Firewire external enclosure for video editing if you need an external drive. Unless you need SCSI.
 
OK abudhu

You have an NF3 with 4 SATA headers, get an internal SATA inclosure, Vipower make them with a switch on the face.

The NF3 is truely SATA hot swappable so you can turn them on/off just like USB & Firewire. A USB enclosure will have a max transfer rate approx half that of the SATA.
 
CAMS said:
OK abudhu

You have an NF3 with 4 SATA headers, get an internal SATA inclosure, Vipower make them with a switch on the face.

The NF3 is truely SATA hot swappable so you can turn them on/off just like USB & Firewire. A USB enclosure will have a max transfer rate approx half that of the SATA.
Click to expand...

Haha, thanks for the info. But it comes about 2 months too late :D I've since bought my enclosure, and I must say, External Drives are by far my favorite tech toy right now. Oh all the things I can do to it without fear of losing needed data. :D :D
 
Here's the Rosewill that I just got.

DSC00431.jpg
 
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