External hard drive enclosure

[LuckyTaxi]

Looked on ebay but didnt see the USB drives that are powered through the USB.
The ones I've seen, they all have AC adapters and my power strip is already filled up.

 

[Matthias99]

Standard external enclosures will all require an AC adapter (AFAIK). The only ones that don't are a few specialized products using low-power laptop drives (such as this one). You can't pull enough power from a standard USB port to run most desktop hard drives reliably.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Hmmmmmm ... didnt realize that. I'll see if I can move some stuff off the power strip.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

What's the difference between the USB hard drives from IOGear and getting your own hard drive and those $30 usb enclosure?

Which brand of hard drive do they use? Am I better off getting my own hard drive?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: lilcam
What's the difference between the USB hard drives from IOGear and getting your own hard drive and those $30 usb enclosure?

The $30 enclosure, AFAIK, requires an AC adapter. That's the selling point of their product, basically.

Which brand of hard drive do they use? Am I better off getting my own hard drive?

I don't know which specific drive models they use; I believe they're actually 2.5" or 1.8" laptop hard drives.

It's cheaper (sometimes a LOT cheaper) to buy an enclosure and supply your own drive, but if you want it to be powered off of USB (no AC plug required), you need a custom product like those IOGear drives. Regular enclosures won't power the drive off of USB, since all but the lowest-power hard drives need more power than that.

 

[KoolAidKid]

You can quite easily power an external drive using USB if you by an enclosure for a laptop drive. I recently bought a 15-gig used 2.5" drive off of the FS/T forums, and a $10 enclosure from SVC.com. Total cost: $45. The enclosure doesn't even come with an A/C adapter. As others have said, any 3.5" or 5.25" enclosure that I've seen requires additional power.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: KoolAidKid
You can quite easily power an external drive using USB if you by an enclosure for a laptop drive. I recently bought a 15-gig used 2.5" drive off of the FS/T forums, and a $10 enclosure from SVC.com. Total cost: $45. The enclosure doesn't even come with an A/C adapter. As others have said, any 3.5" or 5.25" enclosure that I've seen requires additional power.

Hey, there ya go. I knew they had ones sized for laptop drives, but I hadn't seen ones that ran the power off USB as well. Problem solved.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Standard external enclosures will all require an AC adapter (AFAIK). The only ones that don't are a few specialized products using low-power laptop drives (such as this one). You can't pull enough power from a standard USB port to run most desktop hard drives reliably.

I have one like that, except that it needs two USB ports - one for the data and power, and the second one purely for additional power, due to USB's 500mA limit per port.