back up hard drives via usb

[MidNiteMysT]

ide like to get a external harddrive enclosure for my hard drives. one ide and one sata. what ide like to do is use a external hard drive enclosure, but ide like it to have a tray and a bay, so i can store the hard drives in the trays and when i wanna use em, put em in the enclosure, connect usb and power, and thats it. it seems external enclosures arent very hard-drive-swapping friendly. it would be nice if i can get something like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121113
that fits in the 5.25 bay, cept external and connects via usb. i dont want to run power lines outside my case and use that 5.25 bays incase someone wants to suggest that.

and i plan to get a sata to ide converter if there is a way to do this. currently, i have to open my case and put in my sata drive and back up, then take it out. the ide hard drive is too much of a pain to install in my case because i only have one ide slot, so thats two ide devices which are already connected to my cd drives.

 

[Zepper]

AFAIK there are only PATA to SATA converters. Most external enclosures require PATA drives but there are some showing up for SATA drives now. No way to mix the two in one enclosure. And I don't think I've seen a 5.25" SATA enclosure because there aren't very many SATA optical drives out there.
. So if you want to make your life easy, you will have to use all PATA external drives in a 5" external enclosure with a mobile rack for swapping drives. Some of the 5" enclosures come with a mobile rack installed specifically for swapping drives as needed. But it is not hard to install a reack in a standard enclosure.

.bh.

And Bytecc (and others) sells a USB 2 to IDE cable w/ power adapter (often on special at newegg), so you don't even need the enclosure unless you want it, just a mobile rack with an extra tray would do.

.bh.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

i found a sata to ide converter already but i think ide rather do ide to sata now that you mention it. ide just like an external enclosure with usb 2.0 thats able to swap out hard drives easily using a tray rack like the link i posted earlier. do you know of any like that? i dont want to have to buy a seperate external enclosure for each hard drive.

 

[Zepper]

As I wrote before, I've not seen any 5" sata external enclosures as there aren't enough SATA optical drives to warrant it. AFAIK, Plextor is the only company still making them. No 5.25" enclosures = no mobile racks in and external SATA enclosure...

Correction: I just found this one, which you could have done just as easily.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146256

. Pretty expensive, eh? Now you just need to find a SATA mobile rack with room enough for an adapted IDE drive in the tray. One with trays that have a removable front should do in case the drive has to protrude a bit. Newegg has more SATA mobile racks than anyplace else I've seen.

Another source that carries a lot of mobile racks/enclosures is http://www.computergate.com

.bh.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

first of all, what does AFAIK mean?

and yea, i saw those tons of those drives but thats not what i needed. i dont see how i can interchange different hard drives with trays into that. it looks like its a pain to get a hard drive out of that enclosure and put a new one in everytime i have to back up something. you know what i mean?

simply put i wanted this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121113
except external and to connect via the usb port. this way i can buy trays and have my hard drives set up in them and when i need to change em, i just simply swap em out.

it looks like they dont have those types of drives out but thanks anyway.

 

[Zepper]

New topic:

AFAIK = as far as I know


Back to original topic:

C'mon you can't be that dense? I've shown and told you what you need and that will do exactly what you want - if you refuse to understand, I can't help you...

But I'll give it one more shot...

Parts:
1- the external enclosure that I linked to last. It's the only 5" sata capable enclosure I found - not likely to be many due to the reasons I mentioned. The front panel is removable for optical drive or mobile rack use.

2- SATA mobile rack system with an extra removable tray - newegg has more of those than I've seen elsewhere. This mounts inside the external enclosure just like an optical drive would. The trays for the mobile rack system you get should have removable fronts so that the converted drive can protrude a bit if necessary.

3- IDE to SATA converter for the IDE drive you want to use.

Assembly:
1- Mount mobile rack frame into external enclosure.

2- mount drives into trays.

3- partition/format drives if necessary.

Done

Good luck...

.bh.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

finally, you stated it a lot more clear this time. i wasnt "refusing" to understand, why the hell would i do that? lol. it has nothing to do with dense either, you just werent explaining it so well. when i looked at the picture of the link you sent me, it didnt show the usual front with the tray and handle so i thought it was a normal external enclosure without trays because they usually have a handle right in front, get it?
im guessing when it says 5.25" external enclosure, that means it has trays because it didnt mention anything about trays in the new egg description nor is it shown in the pictures. i think you can understand why i was confused. try not to be so rude to people but thanks for you help.

that thing is really pricey but it might be worth it for me. i like to have lots of back ups of my stuff maybe ill wait a little longer till the sata drives become more popular and then the price will go down a lot.

 

[AMD K9]

I agree Zepper's description was a bit confusing. I have a few extenal enclosures as well as a few 5 1/4" drive rack bays with trays (all USB 2.0 though) and Zepps descriptions seemed to get the 2 types mixed together. Glad it was all sorted out though.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

if i bought this for my pata hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146320
do you think its possible to take out the mobile rack part later incase i want to install a cd-rw in there?

and then i could get this
http://sewelldirect.com/SerialATAtoIDEC...words=sata%20ide&match=1&search=search

and be able to use both hard drives in the same enclosure

 

[Zepper]

First, SATA and PATA are both IDE drives, that is why I use SATA and PATA for differentiation.

C'mon G-Y, my posts are models of clarity...

. The interface adapter you linked in the post just above adapts a PATA drive to a SATA controller (or SATA mobile rack tray), read the entire description not just the title - and as I keep saying, I have never seen one to adapt a SATA drive to a PATA controller (or mobile rack tray). Which is why my last post is the way it is. And which is why I used the "D" word. You seem to continue to think there is such a thing... If you really do find such a thing - please let us know.

. If you really want to use both types of hard drives in one external enclosure, the list of parts in my last post is the ONLY way I know of to achieve it - if you find another 5 1/4" external enclosure that supports SATA (or both PATA and SATA as that one does), please let us know. They are scarce for the reason I mentioned way back there and repeat here - there are almost no SATA optical drives - and there are vanishingly few who want to SWAP drives within an external enclosure (there might be more if they could conceive the idea - d..n government schools). Unfortunately it is more expensive, c'est la vie...
. The nice thing is is that that enclosure supports both SATA and PATA, so that if you do want to use an optical drive in it later, no problemo.

. You might reconsider (and it is still my recommendation) having TWO external enclosures - one 3.5" unit for your SATA drive and a 5.25" one for your IDE drive (most include mounting points/adapter for a 3.5" hard drive - no need to buy a separate adapter) which could then be used later for an optical drive by just removing the front plate. It is the cheapest solution as USB is inherently swappable and no interface adapter/converter or mobile rack system would be needed.

.bh.