Safe to use this drive internally? (W/ Pic)

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lasserith

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 16, 2011
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I just opened up my external drive enclosure to see if I could re use the 1tb drive in it for an internal drive and it looks like the drive is missing the bottom half of its case. I'm guessing I need to spring for a new hard drive to use internally but I figured I would check to make sure first.

2011-12-02_14-46-20_999.jpg
 
Most of the Hard Drives I see do not have all the circuitry covered so I would not see an issue with hooking it up internally. As long as it still has the normal mounting screms, I would try it.
 
I've had every HDD that I've owned with exposed circuitry on the bottom. They even arrive through retail that way...

This isn't an issue.
 
Alright the only thing I was worried about was the circuitry. I just have to figure out how to release the hard drive from the last bit of the enclosure and I'll give it a shot tonight.
 
All external drives are literally just internal drives stuffed inside a case with whatever circuitry to use it over USB or whatever, and for power.
 
grimster said:
All external drives are literally just internal drives stuffed inside a case with whatever circuitry to use it over USB or whatever, and for power.
Click to expand...

thats not correct, some usb drives have no sata interface on the drive, they are directly wired to usb so taking them out of the enclosure doesn't get you a normal drive.
 
s0rce said:
thats not correct, some usb drives have no sata interface on the drive, they are directly wired to usb so taking them out of the enclosure doesn't get you a normal drive.
Click to expand...

Show me one. Never seen it in 15 years of doing this.
 
s0rce said:
thats not correct, some usb drives have no sata interface on the drive, they are directly wired to usb so taking them out of the enclosure doesn't get you a normal drive.
Click to expand...

yep, and if you rma it, you get a usb connector again!
 
s0rce said:
thats not correct, some usb drives have no sata interface on the drive, they are directly wired to usb so taking them out of the enclosure doesn't get you a normal drive.
Click to expand...

Show me one, and I'll show you someone who disassembled the drive incorrectly. (hint, it's the same person)
 
They sound very proprietary and very very rare. Something you would probably get off eBay, made in China, with no brand attached to it, or anything inside of it.
 
Yea, I have a big stack of these USB-only drives... sucked pretty hard when we ordered 30 hoping to use them in a ZFS box post-flood and got these:


2011-12-02_16-16-33_831.jpg


2011-12-02_16-17-34_407.jpg


2011-12-02_16-18-09_93.jpg


2011-12-02_16-17-52_107.jpg


As you can see, they're WD branded "passport" drives.
 
lasserith said:
I just opened up my external drive enclosure to see if I could re use the 1tb drive in it for an internal drive and it looks like the drive is missing the bottom half of its case. I'm guessing I need to spring for a new hard drive to use internally but I figured I would check to make sure first.

2011-12-02_14-46-20_999.jpg
Click to expand...

That is normal for hard drives. The only thing not normal is the green card that is plugged into the drive. I believe if you remove you should be fine.
 
obrith said:
Yea, I have a big stack of these USB-only drives... sucked pretty hard when we ordered 30 hoping to use them in a ZFS box post-flood and got these:

As you can see, they're WD branded "passport" drives.
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for showing us that, I've never seen an external drive like that before.
Not too surprised though since they were designed for Apple users. ;)
 
Red Falcon said:
Wow, thanks for showing us that, I've never seen an external drive like that before.
Not too surprised though since they were designed for Apple users. ;)
Click to expand...

The "for Mac" just references that they come formatted with HFS. They started making them like this to make them smaller and presumably reduce costs of extra daughter boards. It was really a bummer for us, considering we purchased them to remove and attach them to a large SATA array. USB drives are useless for bulk, fast storage.
 
obrith said:
The "for Mac" just references that they come formatted with HFS. They started making them like this to make them smaller and presumably reduce costs of extra daughter boards. It was really a bummer for us, considering we purchased them to remove and attach them to a large SATA array. USB drives are useless for bulk, fast storage.
Click to expand...

I'm also sure that they had to keep things simple/stupid for Apple users.
There's no way the average Apple user could understand how to use a daughterboard. j/k :D
 
I haven't built a computer in 6 years so I'm a little bit rusty. (And ya the green board was just the remnants of the black enclosure which you can't see in the picture). Anyways found the last release to pull the board off and it's in my new computer all up and running. Now it's just waiting on windows install heh. Also: HOLY SHIT GPU'S ARE HUGE NOW
 
s0rce said:
thats not correct, some usb drives have no sata interface on the drive, they are directly wired to usb so taking them out of the enclosure doesn't get you a normal drive.
Click to expand...
I've heard/read they have started using these proprietary drives but have never seen one 'till now.
 
I'm pretty sure he was referring to my penis, but I guess air coolers are large too
 
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