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External Drive Enclosure

O

owensdj

Golden Member
I'm looking for an enclosure that will let me make an IDE drive into an external USB device. It needs to support both USB 1 and USB 2. Any recommendations?
 
I just got one from CompUSA (CompUSA branded). I probably paid too much ($70), but I didn't have to wait for it to be shipped. There a 3 flavors: 2.5" for laptop drives, 3.5" for hard drives and 3.5"/5.25" combo that will hold a hard drive or a CD/DVD/... Most of the brands are not big names. They run from about $50 US to over $100. Do a search on pricewatch for "USB 3.5 enclosure" and you will get many hits. BTW, almost all support both 1.1 and 2.0. Perhaps someone else could ring in about the different USB chips. Some e-tailers will tell the USB chip, others will not.

Mine works great except that the instructions were wrong. They said to make the drive Master, but it worked when I removed the jumper and made it a Single.
 
ne1 know how good the firewire capability of this enclosure is? Is it going to be a big step down from a cdrw that comes as USB2 or firewire? Cause it'd be a heck of a lot cheaper than one of them newfangled cd laser disc jobbies that plugs right into your USBeerport. I'm doing some hunting for my sister. Hoping someone could help me here cause I already have the cd burner for her, so all she'd have to get is the firewire port (audigy...hehe) and the box. I don't know if she absolutely needs it externally functional. Any comments or thoughts?

Pete
 
Pilsnerpete,

External enclosures are pretty generic in nature (except the shell which can be either plastic or metal) in terms of their internal design/configuration. I've shopped around for it a few months ago to use my old 16x burner (EIDE) with a notebook. I would say, unless the shell casing is absolutely junk, get whatever is the cheapest 'cause the performance won't matter among the different models. In comparison to the external USB/Firewire CD burners, your homemade external burner will perform just about the same.

Unfortunately, I can't answer the question whether or not your sister will need the external functionality😀
 
I have 2 enclosures, which both run on USB2 and USB1 depending on which port I put it in. They both handle 5 1/4 Hardware as well ... the only difference is that 1 has an ATA 100 cable internally and the other an ATA33...
 
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