Hardware

How do I... Build your own external hard drive enclosure?

By // January 18, 2008, 5:24 AM PST

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  • Choose an enclosure

    Are you in need of a large external hard drive to use for storing your music collection or backing up your data? As you know, you can go to just about any retail outlet that carries computer components and purchase a large external hard drive. However, if you're the kind of person who prefers the do it yourself approach, you can easily put together your own external hard drive.

    In this gallery, I'll show you how to build an external hard drive.

  • Choosing

    Once you begin looking, you'll quickly discover that there are a bewildering number of external enclosures to choose from and each one comes with a variety of features. Of course, there are lots of different enclosure case designs -- some are boxy, some are curvy, some are colored, and some are plain aluminum. Some enclosures are designed to house 2.5-inch drives but most are designed to house 3.5-inch drives. Most enclosures are designed to accommodate IDE drives although some are designed to accommodate SATA drives. The majority of enclosures come with a USB 2.0 connection interface, while some come with both USB 2.0 and FireWire. If the enclosure supports SATA drives, it will have a SATA connection interface and may even have a USB 2.0 or FireWire as well.

    Almost all external enclosures are made of aluminum and the entire unit is designed to act as a big heat sink. However, other enclosures are made of composite plastic and come with their own fan to ensure that the hard drive stays cool.

    Stick with a reputable merchandiser, seek out reviews, and look for the features that you need, and you should be OK.

  • Assembly

    For this project, I'm using the Venus DS-2316B2BK external enclosure made by American Media Systems (www. American-media.com). This model supports IDE drives and provides a USB 2.0 connection interface.

    I purchased this Venus external enclosure from NewEgg.com for $37.99. The package included the enclosure, a set of screws, the power supply, a USB cable, as well as a manual and driver CD.

  • Assembly

    I chose this particular external enclosure because its mounting tray featured a cable-less connection interface and came with a silent 80mm fan specifically designed to keep large hard drives cool.

  • Assembly

    From this angle you can see the cable-less IDE connector and the power connector. The power connector on this unit can slide a quarter of an inch to the left or right to accommodate the position of the power connector on the hard drive.

  • Assembly

    The rear of the unit reveals the USB B connector, the power connector, and an on/off switch. You can also see the ventilation slots at the bottom.

  • Assembly

    While looking for hard disks, I came across this 320GB Western Digital Caviar SE at NewEgg.com for $89.99. Because I've had good experiences with Western Digital Caviar drives in the past, the 320 GB size fit my needs, and it was a good price, I decided that this drive would fit the bill. (The total cost of the parts for my custom built external drive came to $127.98 plus shipping.)

  • Hard drive configuration

    Like most hard drive manufacturers these days, Western Digital puts a diagram on the drive that shows the jumper settings for the various drive configurations. As you can see, by default the drive comes configured for the Cable Select setting with the jumper on pins 1 and 2. However, the manual for the Venus enclosure recommends using the Master or Single setting as you can see from the diagram, to configure this drive to the Master or Single setting, you need to remove the jumper.

  • Hard drive configuration

    Here you can see the jumper on pins 1 and 2 for the Cable Select setting.

  • Hard drive configuration

    Using a pair of tweezers, you can easily remove the jumper.

  • Hard drive configuration

    Here you can see all the pins without any jumpers. The drive is now configured to the Master or Single setting.

  • Mounting

    Mounting the drive on the tray is a simple process as the hard drive slides securely in the slots in the tray and sits right over top of the fan.

  • Mounting

    You then just slide the drive into the IDE and adjustable power connectors until it fits snuggly.

  • Mounting

    Gently flipping the tray over, you can secure the drive onto the tray with the four included screws.

    With the tray flipped over, you can see the fan's design which pulls in cool air from the front and top of the enclosure and then channels warm air out the through the rear ventilation slots.

  • Mounting

    Once the drive is secure, you can slide the tray back into the enclosure.

    Here you can see the intake ventilation slots that are on both sides of the enclosure.

  • Mounting

    With the tray in place, you can secure it to the enclosure by tightening the two screws on the rear.

  • Configuration

    To complete the assembly, just connect the power and USB cables.

  • Configuration

    Once you connect the USB cable to your computer, plug in the power, and flip the switch to the on position, Windows will begin installing the devices drivers. As you can see, in this particular example, I'm connecting the external drive to a system running Windows Vista.

  • Configuration

    When the drivers are installed, you'll see a pop up balloon that lets you know the operation is complete.

  • Configuration

    Because you're using a brand new hard drive, once the device driver installation procedure is complete, you will need to launch the Computer Management console (right-click Computer and select Manage), access Disk Management, and initialize the drive.

  • Configuration

    Once the drive is initialized, you can right-click the graphic, and then select the New Simple Volume command to launch the New Simple Volume Wizard.

  • Configuration

    You can then follow along with the steps in the New Simple Volume Wizard to prepare the hard drive to be formatted.

  • Configuration

    As soon as you complete the New Simple Volume Wizard, the Disk Management tool will begin formatting the drive. When it is complete, you can begin using your new external hard drive.

Choose an enclosure

Are you in need of a large external hard drive to use for storing your music collection or backing up your data? As you know, you can go to just about any retail outlet that carries computer components and purchase a large external hard drive. However, if you're the kind of person who prefers the do it yourself approach, you can easily put together your own external hard drive.

In this gallery, I'll show you how to build an external hard drive.

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About Greg Shultz

Greg Shultz is a freelance Technical Writer. Previously, he has worked as Documentation Specialist in the software industry, a Technical Support Specialist in educational industry, and a Technical Journalist in the computer publishing industry.