Discussion on:

How do I... Build and configure an external hard drive enclosure?

http://www.addonics.com/products/Saturn/aesmr.asp

The reason this specific case caught my eye is because it looks like(scroll down) that you would be able to set up a true ide/sata connection if you wanted to your computer. It looks to allow for the ide/sata cables to run from the external case if you want...

Just looking for another opinion. When I was looking to build a home raid unit, this was what I thought would be the best solution at the time. Speed because of true cable connection and flexibility just because I don't have enough room in any of my case's.

By the way, good article.. Lol, I currently have 2 external drives that I built... A 160 and a 250... Hanging off my bsd machine.

Dan

At least, I assume so.

No, not me.

Ow!! What???

http://www.jpcentury.com/pro_con.aspx?id=P_00000017

It would be good if one could find a place to buy it!!!

Go to Newegg.com or TigerDirect.com. They have a very good choice of enclosures. If for a single hard drive, I strongly recommend that you get one with a fan, especially if your HD is an older IDE drive which tends to run hot.
Though these are the only two I name, there are plenty of other very dependable companies capable of supplying your needs.

I envision seeing the hard drive tossed acress the room.

That's actually a really good idea for hard drive diagnosis and quickly finding out whats on a drive if your a Systems Administrator. Nice find! I'm saving that one.

?

http://www.vantecusa.com/p_nst-d100su.html

I bought this exact same case from Radio Shack. I had two or three disk drives lying around to try. I tried every combination of jumper setting on the large drive (20G) and couldn't get it to work. The smaller drives (~3G) worked OK. Maybe I should have checked BIOS settings.

I hope that somebody out there can help us figure out what wrong. I also tried all combination of jumper setting on the drive but to no avail. I can see the drive listed on the device manager but it doens't show on "My Computer".

Go to Control Panel, select Administrative Tools, select computer management, select storage, select disk management, your drive
should be listed here, from here you can format,set the partition type etc..

I havent used this particular external, but I have used a number of the empty boxes you can get and a couple of the drives that come in a box already (not much more expensive than the drive alone). I have had two or three go bad and they caused problems with the computer they were attached to, thru USB.
I dont know if they shorted out in the circuitry, the drives went bad or the power supplies actually fried and maybe put high power on the units. They seldom fail that way with other things like cameras, however. For that reason, i think it may be the internal circuitry or, less likely, the old drive. I havent figured out how to test without hooking one up to a computer and seeing if it toasts the computer, trying a different drive in the unit and seeing if it toasts the computer and the box, trying a different box with the same drive and seeing if it toasts the box and computer, and finally changing the power supply (which may not match the old one, exactly) and seeing if it toasts the box, the drive and he computer. i try to keep my computers backed up to several of those USB backup drives regularily, anyway, but dont back up to all of them at once, in case something happens with a virus or something.

So far all the bad boxes I have experienced were just cheap power adapters.

All the ext. cases I have seen have under performing power supply, which is turn fries the hard drives given time. too unreliable for serious use.

Help me please!! I have an IMICRO plg@play external hd. I have windwsXP. I am not sure how to install. They sent a little disc with it, but no instructions. it willsupport 750gbs. please help me with install, and use?
TYVM

All you need to do is disassemble the case and connect the drive to the connections in the rear of the drive case either SATA or the 40 pin IDE cable and the (depending on case and drive the 4 pin molex power plug)The carefully insert the drive into the tray, slide the top over it, secure it with a couple of screws, plug in the power supply and power it up. Last step connect to the available and applicable port on you Computer. These are of course basic and generic instructions. However, unless you paid more that fifty dollars for this enclosure, these are certainly your directions. TMS

At the risk of just being stupid. I am an old vet with one arm, and one leg. I have a IMICRO 3.5"HDD external enclosure. If I canput in my Dell Case, and hook it up, I would really like to do it. I don't understand the SATA or 40 PIN ide cable. it has both a power cord, and a USB cable. Help.Thank you

Please do not waste your time with this enclosure. It is of extremely poor construction and with anything but the slowest of dinosaur drives it will be red hot. Go to New Egg and spend 10 more dollars or so for something that will work. If you want a raid enclosure you can purchase one there for a 4 drive SATA array from AMS, including an External SATA card for about 170.00 which is complete with active cooling and port multiplier. TMS

I have been using the Addonics encrypted chasis for about a year now. Although I can't speak to the quality of their encryption, the quality of the enclsures is very good. They have a machine-shop utilitarian feel which I appreciate. If you are not looking for an encrypted product but want the eSata capability, look at the Antec enclosure. This unit looks great, is of high quality and nearly silent. Plus it comes with a neat eSata port for your desktop system.
http://www.pro-clockers.com/review.php?id=214

Hey just incase you already own an external drive, try swapping drives when the original gets full and lable the full drive with a date range and or brief description of the contents like "Pictures-1/01/2005-12/31/2005".

I have on numerous times successfully swapped the logic board between two identical defective drives. This allowed me to have one working drive when one had defective media and the other a defective logic board.

Jim

I picked up the exact same drive enclosure from Staples.. I also wrote a slightly scathing review as well.. the case gives absolute zero space for a standard height IDE drive. (it's probably better suited to the thinner drives, like an old Maxtor 20GB..) the aluminum case makes for excellent heat transfer, but here too is also the problem.. Couple that massive heat transfer, with a >160GB drive, and you're begging for a number of thermal related problems..

#1.. the case, has absolutely no way to dissipate that heat.
resulting, you end-up with the case getting hot enough to literally heat a mug of coffee to the temperature that burned that poor woman at McDonalds. A 200GB Maxtor and a 160GB Western Digital ended-up getting super hot. the smooth case surface just gets hot, and there's no way to remove the heat, unless you strap a water-cooled P4 block to it. You can't drill holes through the case, (besides the obvious waurantee void) because there is virtually no room to move air inside either.

Before it's demise, CompUSA had a fair priced external drive enclosure, in many flavors..
ATA, SATA, USB-2, USB-2/IEEE394(Firewire).. for only $39.00 I couldn't find any shortly after the news of their closing, so I treasure the 6 I have, like gold!) (One rescued a 500GB Seagate Free Agent, that was suffering thermal shutdown because of a poorly designed case. the ONLY external SATA I own.) There are other case manufacturers, and, as the old saw goes, Your mileage may vary... But I sure miss the CompUSA ones.. they were highly reliable!

Stephen Griswold

I don't know if anyone else has tried this, and Im not claiming to be some genious who knows all the in's and outs to making multiple hdd enclosures. But, I have taken an old 300w Psu, Tool box, and 4x old various sized hdds and created my own External hdd. To do this I bought a Usb Hub (4 Port), and 4x USB to Ide / Sata Connectors.

From there I mounted the PSU, The 4 port usb hub, and the 4 hdds in the toolbox. Plugged the molex connectors and usb to ide / sata adapters into the hard drives and hub. Wired in a power switch into the Psu, and voila. I have an external 4 hdd enclosure. Im in the process atm adding mounting some fans to keep the hdd's a bit cooler. But all in all, this works quite well.

Again, Im not vowing to be some god in any way because I did this. If you haven't tried this tho, then I can vow it works fine.

I would recommend researching this properly if ur a noob though. If you blow ur psu / hdds / urself up because u didn't research this properly its ur own fault

I too (As another poster mentioned) am a disabled vet, and we operate a non-profit, retrofitting and/or refurbishing old, donated, or otherwise discarded PC's for reuse by our fellow disabled vets. Money IS an issue! For our systems around here, not the ones we give out, we are always looking for ways to do various things, like, testing drives for stability, as one example. Without, that is, triggering Microsoft's stupid 'Phone Home you've exceeded too many changes" in XP. Having done that a couple of times, I am not eager to go through that very often. Using a drive as an EXTERNAL does not trigger this, and everybody is happy. We find out what drives we can safely use, and Microsoft doesn't have to give us new numbers... AGAIN. (Having to explain, again, WHY we need them, and how we triggered the damned alert is a pain. Some of our {boughten} testing software is not LINUX friendly, sadly) I love the idea of making my own enclosure, as the ones we have bought have mostly sucked. We now avoid like the plague anything with the name "Metal Gear" on it. Their PSU has to be the worst I've ever seen. Besides, ALL of the external boxes we've bought cost at least $40,00 USD or more, money we could better use elsewhere.
I've often wondered if I couldn't use a method similar to the one you describe... We have plenty of power supplies laying around, and I know how to 'turn on' one to use without a motherboard attached. (A handy thing to be able to do) I see on 'Evertek,com' various cables and other devices that can take either/or EIDE and/or SATA drives and make them into a USB interface, so all that's really needed after that would be the PSU and housing. It sounds like that's just what you have done. Knowing someone else has already done it, and it works, I will not be afraid of wasting the money to duplicate it. Thanks!
Junkman
TheRealJunkman@Yahoo.com
Project Head:
Project Connect Vets

Or you could just buy this from NewEgg or wherever!! Only cost 21 bucks and you can use IDE or sata as external. I have one and it works great.

XION XON-AAD001B SATA & IDE Power Adapter - Retail

* Features:
Connect any device with an IDE/SATA interface to a PC with USB interface Complies with USB 2.0 standards Complies with ATA/ATAPI-7 Supports IDE/SATA and enhanced IDE hard drives Supports ATA/ATAPI/SATA hard drives and more External Universal power adapter for IDE/ATAPI/SATA devices Multiple Platform compatibility for PC, Linux, Mac compatible

* Specifications:
Interface: USB2.0 Material: Plastic Drive Type: 2.5"or 3.5" Hard Devices Dimension: 15.5x65.5x62 (LxWxH)mm Power Source: External Power Adapter universal auto-switching AC Adapter Input: AC 100-240V, 50-60Hz. AC Adapter Output: DC+12V/2A System Requirements Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/VISTA, Linux and MAC
* Type: SATA & IDE Power Adapter
* Model #: XON-AAD001B
* Item #: N82E16812264001
* Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

Usualy, I buy on a spur of the moment... The one good thing about buying a good case though is that they come with cooling.

Dan

This is par for the course with such clever "how to"
articles. The people writing them seem to always find
these great deals, or have just the spare components they
need lying around. But when I start looking around
(locally and via the net) for what's needed, the prices
always seem to be much higher. It's a lesson I learned
decades ago... and continue to re-learn on a regular
basis. Parallel universes?

thanks for the step by step,being an avid newbie ,I appreciate all the help I can get

Title should not be build. I thought this was a way of recycling old PC parts. It should say "How to fit a HDD into an external enclosure"!

I agree Brian, I thought exactly as you did and was somewhat disappointed. I already have 2 external HDDs and like you was hoping to find a way of building one from spare parts.

It is not possible to cannibalise two HDD's to make one good one - even if they are the same make, model and batch.

Firstly, exposing the platters (the discs themselves) to the air destroys them - or at least makes them unusable as the coating oxidises - this is why the compartment they are in is airtight. Note that a bit of dust a quarter the width of a human hair caught between the platter and the read-write head will irrevocably trash the thing.

The circuit board appears to be 'attuned' to a particular set of platters and so, even if the two drives followed each other off the production line, they will not work if swapped.

I have tried this (admittedly some years ago) and came to the conclusion that a dead HDD has several purposes including drinks mats, bird scarers, garden ornaments (string them and dangle from a tree), but definitely not as a refurbished disc drive.

Snak is right. EVEN if you get it to spin up and work - it will be more than extremely unreliable. Dust particles barely visible to the human eye WOULD destroy the coating on the disk as the head moves over them.

Not wortht the time - risk or expense to do.

A few years back an old 20 gig drive failed - did the transplant and it worked fine after that. Admittedly this was for data recovery purposes and not for ongoing use though, it really only had to work for 20 minutes.

My boss's circuit board went out on her hard drive - wouldn't even power up anymore. How did I find out? I tore apart 15 other laptops (just took out the hard drives) until I found an exact model match of my bosses drive. Swapped the circuit boards - it powered up just fine.

Grabbed her data, swapped the boards back and sent the drive back as dead.

However, I agree if you tear into the guts of the drive, messing with the heads and such, it will make things worse.

But, just by removing the cover, you don't damage the drive. I removed the top cover of an ancient (lol) 20gb drive and left it running (used it) on top of my computer for about 3 months. It never once had a read/write error and it was completely open. I am in a pretty sealed IT room, so dust-wise it's pretty clean in here, but just opening the drive did nothing to the drive.

{edit}Additional info: Hard drives are NOT airtight. But they are "dust" tight. Ever notice that little hole on the top cover that seems to have a filter on it?

I have a wide-open 10 gig HD sitting right here, spinning away happily and reading/writing data as part of a demo. I'd bet that as long as it keeps spinning at 5400 RPM there will not be much dust settling on the platter...although I do have some reservations regarding safety issues of exposed metal plates humming along at said revolutions.

I think there may have been a slight misunderstanding, the title referred to building an external hard drive enclosure - the previous poster said he wanted to build one from spare parts, I would've assumed he meant the enclosure, not the drive itself..

Duhhh??? Have I missed a posting or did someone mention cannibalising or refurbishing HDDs?? No! Try and read the whole thing before jumping to conclusions. I, like many others, thought this would be an interesting article about how to BUILD an external HDD (casing!) - not installing or fitting. Everyone is getting on their high horse about this, but really it's quite simple, the item was definitely mis-titled. That is all. I'm not an IT Pro, I'm just a game old bird who scratches a living from helping people in my village. It looked interesting, maybe useful, I read it, I was disappointed, it was mis-titled. That's it!

It is possible to swap the circuit boards (controller?) on the outside of the drive between two matched drives. I've done this on more than one occasion. For example a poorly designed case touched and shorted out the circuit board and a matching hard drive from an identical system was swapped and the drive worked flawlessly.

Now as far as the internals absolutely, not swappable without a NASA clean room or some such. As a mentor taught me long ago if you open the drive and let the blue smoke out it will never work again...

I had a 3.5" 40MB SCSI drive on my Apple IIgs. One day when I turned it on, the drive wouldn't spin up. So I removed the cover of the drive, used a jeweler's screw driver to spin the platter until it took off on its own. Then it worked fine for several months until the bearings finally wore out completely and the platter came to a screeching halt. I never put the cover back on either. It was cool to watch it work, especially during a defrag...

THe drives are NOT airtight. THey have a small vent hole covered with a filter for air expansion due to temperature changes.
I have taken a working hard drive and opened it to expose the platers and used it for several months in the open air as a neat visual to show how a drive works.
But as a side note. ANY removal of the platers and getting them out of alignment makes them unusable.

It is possible to cannibalise 2 hard drives into one:

you need exact same make, model, date stamp, and firware revisions across the board (on both drives)

(according to Western Digital on IDE drives if you were desperate and many of the restoration methods didn't work you could attempt it, I spoke to a engineer who said it is possible just not likely going to work ;o) )

Exposing the platter discs to air does not destroy them (dust, water, etc. landing on the platters will) I have had drives opened and could load the OS, and access data. I even went as far as running an Xacto blade across the platter discs, rebooted and it successfully loaded after reboot (even after the extensive click of death).

This was on a western digital and a seagate 6.4GB HDD

Yeah, I'm disappointed with the article as well. Anyone can buy a HDD enclosure on eBay or from tigerdirect.com for the same amount, and adding one's old HDD is so intuitive a 5-year old could do it.

I was looking for info on where to buy USB2 to data-cable junctions & power cable connectors so I could actually "build" a multiple HDD enclosure. No info here...

I must admit that the title did draw me in wondering if there was something special here.

There wasn't but this is an extremely lucid and helpful guide to the basics of setting up an external hard drive.

Many of us here consider this child's play and not worth mentioning and thereby leave new and nervous people without the easy early steps on the ladder to geekery.

Huge kudos to the author for taking the time to write the article and for the excellent clarity employed.

How many people would be defeated by a bad jumper setting if this was their first tinkering? I'd suggest many and this sets it out in the clearest manner I have ever seen.

If those who thought this was too simple and want a more complex document posted I'm sure every one here would welcome you taking on that role and posting those more advanced 'how to's.

The author has taken on the role of writing a beginner's piece and done it very very well!

Basics! I'd say. It's not building, it's installing.

It is very well done. Especially in comparison to the OEM instructions that come with the enclosure.

I think he did a GREAT job of documentation, yes, better than OEM instructions.

A VERY good article. Was it an indepth article on how to do something magnificent? No, but it answered a couple of questions I had when considering putting some old stuff to use.

You Did a good Job. Wish I had someone to document as good as you! We need that!

PS - The pictures were of excellent quality too.

It midly concerns me that someone classified as an IT Department Manager didn't understand this already. I would have worries if I was working under an IT Department Manager who thought this was informative. This is nearly as bad (but not quite) as the customer who self-ran his own web hosting company asked me what a subnet mask was, because he thought they were all 255.255.255.0

It terrifies me how many people with some really important sounding titles in this thread thought this article was amazing and educational.