Powered USB Enclosure 3.5'' IDE

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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All the units I've seen include their own power supply. 3.5" drives require both 5 and 12 volt supplies. Even with a voltage converter, the power requirements for many 3.5" drives may be too steep to meet USP power specs, especially if any other USB device is connected to the same system.

Power

The USB specification provides a 5 V supply on a single wire from which connected USB devices may draw power. The specification provides for no more than 5.25 V and no less than 4.75 V (5 V±5%) between the positive and negative bus power lines.[19]

A unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and was raised to 150 mA in USB 3.0. A maximum of 5 unit loads (500mA) can be drawn from a port in USB 2.0, which was raised to 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0. There are two types of devices: low-power and high-power. Low-power devices draw at most 1 unit load, with minimum operating voltage of 4.4 V in USB 2.0, and 4 V in USB 3.0. High-power devices draw the maximum number of unit loads supported by the standard. All devices default as low-power but the device's software may request high-power as long as the power is available on the providing bus.

A bus-powered hub is initialized at 1 unit load and transitions to maximum unit loads after hub configuration is obtained. Any device connected to the hub will draw 1 unit load regardless of the current draw of devices connected to other ports of the hub (i.e one device connected on a four-port hub will only draw 1 unit load despite the fact that all unit loads are being supplied to the hub).

A self-powered hub will supply maximum supported unit loads to any device connected to it. A battery-powered hub may supply maximum unit loads to port. In addition, the VBUS will supply 1 unit load upstream for communication if parts of the Hub are powered down.

In Battery Charging Specification, new powering modes are added to the USB specification. A host or hub charger can supply maximum 1.5 A when communicating at low-speed or full-speed, maximum 900 mA when communicating at hi-speed, no upper current limit when no communication is taking place. A dedicated charger can supply maximum 1.5 A of current. A portable device can draw up to 1.8 A from a dedicated charger. The dedicated charger shorts the D+ and D- pins together and will not send or receive any information on those lines, allowing very simple, high current chargers to be manufactured. The increased current (faster charging) will occur once the host/hub and devices both support the new charging specification.

If you don't mind the separate power supply, you can find lots of units that will do the job.