2-bay external SCSI enclosure for $12.50 + shipping

[Vincent]

I bought one of these from Computer Geeks for a total of $40 last August. Now they're only $12.50 plus shipping and handling.

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=205-0239

They come with a 40W power supply and can hold two 5.25" half-height drives or one 5.25" full-height drive. They have a pair of HD50 connectors on the back. They are solidly built.

However, the power supply will block some of the screws holes on drives that you install. Also, on the one I got, the screws on one of the HD50 connectors in the back have come out. So the connector is loose. But I don't want to have to pay the shipping to send it back to them to exchange it.

 

[Smbu]

This seems like a nice enclosure. I've been thinking about buying one for awhile. It would be a nice place to put my Plextor 40x Max cdrom and Plextor 12/10/32S cdrw drive. Too bad I don't have a cable to connect it to my scsi card. Plus this thing seems heavy, so higher shipping cost and they charge tax to ppl in CA.

BTW why don't you just buy some screws and tighten it up yourself?

 

[Vincent]

UPS Ground to me in Los Angeles is only $6. So you'd be looking at a total of just over $20. Something like this at Fry's costs over $50. I got one for a tape drive because it got really hot and I didn't want it to harm my CD drives.

One drawback of putting CD drives in it is that it doesn't have any audio connectors. So you won't be able to listen to audio CDs from your computer unless you use the headphone jack on the drive.

I think the threads are stripped on the holes for the screws holding the HD50 connector on the back. So the screws are very loose.

 

[her209]

not linked correctly.

 

[Smbu]

The link worked fine for me.

I would still need to buy a hd50 pin to hd50 pin cable to connect it to my internal 50pin to external hd50 pin adapter.

 

[Jugernot]

Vincent, if you are using Win2k or Win98, you can enable digital audio which doesn't require a audio cable.

 

[Odeen]

Vincent - does that box have an on-off switch for the PSU?

My 24/7 router holds my CD-R and CD-ROM, and I'd like to 1) move them out of my case, and 2) be able to turn the off most of the time, when I'm not using the computer.. The case has 2 7200 RPM hard drives, and no cooling save for PSU exhaust (good thing the P3-550 runs on 1.6 volts!), so being able to have less things spinning is a godsend..

So - is there an on-off switch?

Alex

 

[McCarthy]

Yes, there is an on/off switch.
Fan's quiet too.

I got this with a 9g Seagate HD when the geeks had them as a combo. Don't use it...anyone want it?

--Mc

 

[kingink]

Hey McCarthy,
I am interested.

what's your price for the drive and enclosure shipped to CA?
Is the drive 9gb formatted? more ? for ya if you reply. king_ink@lycos.com or huevoscrudos@yahoo.com.
kingink

 

[darren]

can this case be used to house my 2 IDE ibm Hard drives?

 

[Shack70]

No it's SCSI only

 

[unhuman]

Does the case take 3 1/2" drives or just 5 1/4?

I could definitely see getting out the soldering iron and converting the case to IDE. I love soldering!

-H

 

[Kwad Guy]

These are super high quality enclosures...Good quality fan, good
quality construction. You can't touch anything like this for
close to $12.50 anywhere else.

These were originally Quantum DLT tape drive enclosures. I am
not sure why they wound up on the surplus market, but the Quantum
DLT drive line is server quality, and these cases reflect that.

Kwad

 

[worms]

Unhuman,

IDE can't go that far. Solder all you want and it still won't work unless you have the enclosure connected to your computer via a 2" cable. 3-1/2" drives always require adapters in an enclosure like this. Hard drives and tape drives will almost always include the adapters.

Anyway, it's a smokin' deal. 50 pin is a little rough but a modern connector could easily be substituted. I have a 4 bay Kingston that houses my CDR. Paid around $150 many years back. It is quiet but definately adds more noise to the room. I leave it off most of the time but then I have to reboot to use the CDR. I imagine that Win98/ME would not require a reboot but I havent found any other way with Win00.

 

[cloudchief]

Worms, In Win2000 you want to open device manager, go to Action and choose 'Scan for hardware changes'. In Win98, device mananger, Refresh does the trick. One of the beauties of scsi.

 

[unhuman]

IDE can go far... Provided the system is connected properly. I have had an IDE cable go over 3 feet.... so, this is definitely do-able... My case is limited to the # of drives to go. I just dunno if it's worth the effort - and I have one bay still free....

When that fills up, I might have to re-create my "Frankensystem" or add firewire drives....

-H

 

[Odeen]

Just because it's possible doesn't mean the ECC protocols were working overtime to keep your data safe.. It's like overclocking - sometimes you can do it, sometimes you disable L2 cache to do it (our analogy: running the drive in PIO mode), and sometimes you do it and your hard drive crashes.

Vincent: Is the power switch on the back of that enclosure? The front looks all clear and empty...

Alex

 

[Braxus]

I got one of these cases for my CD Dupe box. Great investment IMO... worth every penny.

 

[Vincent]

The power switch is on the back of the enclosure. It's positioned at the only part you can't see in the photo that they have.

If you want to see how many more they have in stock, just enter a ridiculous quantity like 10000 and their system will show you. It just said for me that they have 124 left in stock.

As worms said, you can buy an adapter to fit 3.5" drives into 5.25" bays.

Sometimes the Win2000 "scan for hardware changes" doesn't work completely for me. This system does recognize the tape drive, but I haven't been able to back up to it successfully. This method does work fine when I turn on my scanner after booting up, though.

 

[Vincent]

Bump

 

[dwinslett]

Hell if your offering, I'll take it...

 

[Leland]

Can I use this bad boy with a laptop and a SCSI pcmia adapter card?

Any opinions? I'd really love to have a nice burner for the laptop that doesn't cost half-a-million (then again, no internal scsi drive is that cheap, either, but anyway, the question still stands)...

 

[cloudchief]

Yes you can use it with a laptop and a pc scsi card. I do it with an adaptec 1480 and an Iomega/plexter external. Works great. Again the beauty and flexibity of scsi.

 

[Vincent]

This unit is pretty heavy. So if you use it with a laptop, it'll be difficult to carry it around with you. Otherwise, it should work fine.

 

[Leland]

No, I don't really want to carry it, just have a burner that doesn't cost twice as much as any decent internal...

With this thing I can totally replace the desktop -- add another HD and a burner -- the only two things that I need to deal with my crap desktop for...Thanks for the info cloudchief. Can you PM me if there any additional concerns or problems with doing this?