External Enclosure for Internal HDD

[Acidicheartburn]

I'm looking at buying an external HDD enclosure from my local Microcenter in Minneapolis MN for an internal desktop HDD, likely in 2.5 inch form factor, though 3.5 inch is preferred.

I have a few questions regarding transfer rates, power, and cooling.

Some 2.5in enclosures say they're USB powered only, such as this Vantec Nextar model. Will USB power only really be enough for a 2.5in HDD such as a 500GB Western Digital Black? I'm going to assume USB power isn't enough for 3.5in desktop HDD's.

Do I need to worry about effective cooling for a 3.5in and or a 2.5in HDD? Will fanless enclosures be OK for both 3.5in and 2.5in or do I need to make sure I get a fan for a 3.5in drives? Will 2.5in drives be OK with a fanless design? These won't be used in high heat environments and probably will never be used as boot drives, only backup of windows images and music.

For the sake of convenience, I'm looking to get as high of transfer rates as possible out of my enclosure. For a standard SATA HDD in either 3.5in or 2.5in form factor, will USB 2.0 or eSATA yield maximum transfer speeds, or do I need USB 3.0 to achieve the highest speeds a SATA HDD is capable of? I'm not looking to put an SSD in one of these any time soon, but having the extra performance potential there in case it happens sometime in the future would be a bonus, however it would limit my options for enclosures.

I'm looking to buy specifically in store from Microcenter as I need an external enclosure soon. I'm not looking to spend the extra money on a dedicated external HDD like a WD Passport or a Toshiba or Seagate equivalent as those cost more and I'm concerned about reliability. Plus, an external enclosure for an internal HDD allows me to replace the HDD in the future in case it goes bad or I need more capacity. I also happen to have a number of extra HDD's laying around which I'm not using.

Thanks,

Acid

 

[smitbret]

USB 2.0 will be a huge bottleneck for any SATA drive. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible and barely costs more than a USB 2.0 enclosure anymore so you should probably stick with USB 3.0 at this point. Vantec is pretty decent but my luck has been about 50/50 with external enclosures in general.

My current favorite is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FYQBNG0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00

One USB 3.0 cable supplies data and power for the 2.5" HDD. Runs like a charm.

 

[Sabrewings]

USB 2.0 would indeed be a huge bottle neck.

Yes, USB power is enough for 2.5" drives because they only use 5v. 3.5" drives use the 12v line as well and would require a separate power adapter for the enclosure.

I have a 500GB 2.5" WD blue in a USB 3.0 enclosure by Anker. Works perfectly with great speeds.

 

[Acidicheartburn]

Sounds good. I've noticed some USB 3.0 2.5in enclosures use a double USB prong for power and data transfer. Kinda strange when some, like the one smitbret linked do not.

I'll likely go for a 2.5in enclosure as its far more convenient than having a separate AC power plug in an enclosure. Seems like the 3.5in enclosures with the AC Power are more for a single-drive NAS kind of situation hooked up to a router.

Someone elsewhere mentioned that cooling an internal drive shouldn't be too much of an issue as their heat concerns are generally related to being in the hot environment of a computer tower or laptop case.

I'll definitely aim for USB 3.0 if USB 2.0 will still be a bottleneck for a typical SATA HDD, especially since I'm aiming for large single file transfers of system images rather than a lot of smaller files.

Thanks,

Acid

 

[corkyg]

Some of the older 2.5-in enclosures use a Y connector - they connect to 2 USB ports. I have one. I have 5 external 3.5-in Vantecs - 2 of them are eSATA. I don't have USB 3, so eSATA data transfer is just about as good - maybe more reliable. All the 3.5ion cases have their own power bricks. I have them connected to a power box so I can turn 'em on and off individually.

For added reliability, I connect all the USB port externals to a powered hub - that5 way they don't impact the laptop's limited power.

There are Vantec externals that will take either 3.5 or 2.5.

 

[Acidicheartburn]

I ended up going with an Vantec NexStar CX 2.5in USB 3.0 enclosure. The build quality seems fair, and so far it's worked as intended. It only seems to need one of the two USB prongs to get enough power for my 500gb WD Black. I ended up copying some music on it after I put my system images on it from a fairly fast USB 3.0 flash drive (200 MB/s read advertised) and was averaging around 104 MB/s transfer speeds, so I'm happy.

 

[AlienTech]

If enough power for the drive is not provided, the drive will click itself to death.. Like when you use a very long connector as DC voltage drops drastically the longer the cable length is, but things like keyboards and such dont care and works fine but hard drive and such are different..

In such cases you need an external power supply attachement. 3.5 drives all require a seperate power supply as the USB bus do not provide any 12V supply.. So make sure you dont just use any ole usb cable. USB2 ports are limited to 2.5watts.. While USB3 ports can go above 10 watts if needed. So I doubt you would need 2 USB connectors to provide enough power when using a USB3 port.. But you might need both prongs when plugging it into a USB2 port with older drives or some SSD's..

 

[AlienTech]

Someone elsewhere mentioned that cooling an internal drive shouldn't be too much of an issue as their heat concerns are generally related to being in the hot environment of a computer tower or laptop case.

Acid

He was wrong.. Its a huge concern and the primary factor in external drive failure next to dropping it..

 

[tcsenter]

Almost all 2.5" laptop drives state on the label what the load is on +5V. I've seen a few of them exceed 500 mA limit for USB port power by a couple-few hundred mA. Not sure if it has been increased with USB 3.0. Some motherboards allow for up to 550mA ~ 600mA.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

For the sake of convenience, I'm looking to get as high of transfer rates as possible out of my enclosure. For a standard SATA HDD in either 3.5in or 2.5in form factor, will USB 2.0 or eSATA yield maximum transfer speeds, or do I need USB 3.0 to achieve the highest speeds a SATA HDD is capable of? I'm not looking to put an SSD in one of these any time soon, but having the extra performance potential there in case it happens sometime in the future would be a bonus, however it would limit my options for enclosures.

USB3 is more then enough with a standard HDD, even the 7200RPM variety. One thing you should make sure the enclosure supports is UASP. Though it also requires OS support (Win8 and newer) it gives a nice boost.

SSDs are another matter entirely. First off you'll need 10Gbit USB3.1 to take full advantage of one. USB3 w/UASP tops out at ~425MB/s. A little lower then native SATA3, which can do 560MB/s on a good day. Regular plain vanilla USB3 top out at 225MB/s. The newer Intel controllers (8-series chipset and newer) can do ~250MB/s.

Oh, and not every USB3 cable out there can handle 425MB/s. Make sure you use quality ones.

 

[fuzzymath10]

You should be able to monitor temps depending on the drive+enclosure combination.

I hardly use external drives anymore, but many fast spinning/multi-platter 3.5" drives will get quite hot without a fan (e.g. 4 platters, 7200rpm). "Green" drives are generally OK.

Temps have also been OK on 2.5" drives, even 7200rpm ones. Sometimes, the enclosure acts as a heatsink, since I can feel it getting warm. However, I have had the clicking occur when power drops too much, and I find it's worse with desktop USB ports.

 

[tweakboy]

Just buy a external hard drive. As for SSD ,,, you just put it anywhere you want in the case as long as cables are good, it will work like a charm

 

[Acidicheartburn]

If enough power for the drive is not provided, the drive will click itself to death.. Like when you use a very long connector as DC voltage drops drastically the longer the cable length is, but things like keyboards and such dont care and works fine but hard drive and such are different..

In such cases you need an external power supply attachement. 3.5 drives all require a seperate power supply as the USB bus do not provide any 12V supply.. So make sure you dont just use any ole usb cable. USB2 ports are limited to 2.5watts.. While USB3 ports can go above 10 watts if needed. So I doubt you would need 2 USB connectors to provide enough power when using a USB3 port.. But you might need both prongs when plugging it into a USB2 port with older drives or some SSD's..

So far the drive in the enclosure has been running like a champ even when plugged into a single USB 2.0 port on my laptop. No clicking, and though I haven't yet checked the temps with a utility such as Speccy (and I know this HDD is capable of reporting temps), I have felt the all aluminum enclosure get warm. Not hot, but warm.

~Acid

 

[Red Squirrel]

In my experience USB power really depends on each PC that you will plug it in. Some PCs will provide enough power and some won't. So to make sure your enclosure will work on any PC I would look at an enclosure that has a power adapter too. Optionally you can hack a USB cable and inject 5v from another source such as a wall wart for extra power. I've done this for a 2.5" enclosure that did not have a way to connect power. Some PCs did not provide enough power through the USB port so it was always hit or miss as to if it would spin up.

If this is a drive that will sit beside a single source and always be connected to that PC then you can try it without a hack and if it works then leave it. But if it's a travelling drive that will be plugged into various PCs it's something to consider.

 

[Acidicheartburn]

In my experience USB power really depends on each PC that you will plug it in. Some PCs will provide enough power and some won't. So to make sure your enclosure will work on any PC I would look at an enclosure that has a power adapter too. Optionally you can hack a USB cable and inject 5v from another source such as a wall wart for extra power. I've done this for a 2.5" enclosure that did not have a way to connect power. Some PCs did not provide enough power through the USB port so it was always hit or miss as to if it would spin up.

If this is a drive that will sit beside a single source and always be connected to that PC then you can try it without a hack and if it works then leave it. But if it's a travelling drive that will be plugged into various PCs it's something to consider.

The enclosure came with a dual prong USB cable for extra power if needed. So far I've only needed to use one prong for 4 separate computers. Obviously that means its a "traveling" external drive now. I would have purchased a 3.5in enclosure with a fan and DC power if I needed the drive always connected.

~Acid