SATA and power outside of PC case for easy backup?

[Kneedragger]

I want to be able to hook up extra hard drives to my PC so I can make a back up of the hard drives. These hard drives will be stored in another location once they are used. Is there any hardware that can make this easy and not need to open the PC all the time? I know they have USB devices that plug into a hard drive but is there anything that goes straight to SATA?

Thanks

 

[Gunbuster]

ESATA Enclosure? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ure&Submit=ENE

 

[Kneedragger]

ESATA Enclosure? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ure&Submit=ENE

Not exactly what I'm looking for. I just want to hook up the bare hard drive to a cable that connect to the SATA and power cable. Then be able to disconnect when done.

 

[imagoon]

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-e.../dp/B001IOPIRM

FYI The SATA internal connectors are not really designed for a lot of eject operations so you may wear the drive connectors out.

 

[dawza]

Something like this:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10421&cs_id=1042102&p_id=2371&seq=1&format=2

And then just get the appropriate cables to hook up to your bare HDD?

Or, if you have an open slot on the front of your case, a simple hot-swap rack would be much more elegant:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=108&cp_id=10824&cs_id=1082402&p_id=3857&seq=1&format=2

Another option would be an eSATA dock:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10315&cs_id=1031502&p_id=6630&seq=1&format=2

Assuming you have an eSATA port on your MB/case. If not, a simple PCI adapter would do the trick:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040707&p_id=7637&seq=1&format=2

Options 2 and 3 would be my preference, just because you won't have the HDD sitting flat, not to mention not having to plug/unplug multiple cables. Fancier hot-swap racks have power buttons so you can just fire up the HDD at will, and keep it powered-down (but safely stored) when not needed.

 

[SKORPI0]

Why not external USB3.0 drives? Mobos usually have either eSATA or USB3.0 ports accessible from the outside of the case, not SATA.

or this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817707260
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-Super.../dp/B0055PL2YI

 

[Kneedragger]

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-e.../dp/B001IOPIRM

FYI The SATA internal connectors are not really designed for a lot of eject operations so you may wear the drive connectors out.

Thanks for the info I will keep that in mind. I was only looking to update the drives every three months. You think that's still too much?

 

[Kneedragger]

Something like this:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10421&cs_id=1042102&p_id=2371&seq=1&format=2

And then just get the appropriate cables to hook up to your bare HDD?

Or, if you have an open slot on the front of your case, a simple hot-swap rack would be much more elegant:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=108&cp_id=10824&cs_id=1082402&p_id=3857&seq=1&format=2

Another option would be an eSATA dock:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10315&cs_id=1031502&p_id=6630&seq=1&format=2

Assuming you have an eSATA port on your MB/case. If not, a simple PCI adapter would do the trick:

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10407&cs_id=1040707&p_id=7637&seq=1&format=2

Options 2 and 3 would be my preference, just because you won't have the HDD sitting flat, not to mention not having to plug/unplug multiple cables. Fancier hot-swap racks have power buttons so you can just fire up the HDD at will, and keep it powered-down (but safely stored) when not needed.

Why not external USB3.0 drives? Mobos usually have either eSATA or USB3.0 ports accessible from the outside of the case, not SATA.

or this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817707260
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-Super.../dp/B0055PL2YI

I was looking for something a little faster then USB 3.0. With eSATA don't you still need power?

This is the mobo I'm using. http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Q1900-ITX/

 

[imagoon]

I was looking for something a little faster then USB 3.0. With eSATA don't you still need power?

This is the mobo I'm using. http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Q1900-ITX/

Yes, you get the power from a wall wart.

--edit--

The unit uses 12V DC per the manual so you could likely power it with the PC if you bought an internal to external adapter plate and cable.

 

[JackMDS]

You probably have something on your mind that does not exists.

The links given to you include all the variations possible for external Drive.

I hope that you are aware that SATA/eSata is just a matters of plugs otherwise there is No difference they both work with the on-board SATA controller.

If you are Not really sure what would you like to do just get the $3.31 part from Monoprice.

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10421&cs_id=1042102&p_id=2371&seq=1&format=2

Inside it connects to an available power supply Molex and a SATA port.

It then will provide you on the back panel SATA port and power.

From there you can take it to whatever you want without opening the case.

If you just want to connect it manually to a bare SATA Drive you will need regular SATA cable and a Molex to SATA Power cable.

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=8795&seq=1&format=2

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022601&p_id=8775&seq=1&format=2

So, for less then $3.31 + $0.28 + $ 0.57 + ship, you can reduce anxiety and think clear into the future. :thumbsup: - :biggrin:

 

[mfenn]

I was looking for something a little faster then USB 3.0.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. At an effective data rate of 3.2 Gb/s (400 MB/s) after encoding and protocol overhead, USB 3.0 is far faster than any mechanical drive, and will not significantly bottleneck most SSDs.

 

[Kneedragger]

You probably have something on your mind that does not exists.

The links given to you include all the variations possible for external Drive.

I hope that you are aware that SATA/eSata is just a matters of plugs otherwise there is No difference they both work with the on-board SATA controller.

If you are Not really sure what would you like to do just get the $3.31 part from Monoprice.

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=104&cp_id=10421&cs_id=1042102&p_id=2371&seq=1&format=2

Inside it connects to an available power supply Molex and a SATA port.

It then will provide you on the back panel SATA port and power.

From there you can take it to whatever you want without opening the case.

If you just want to connect it manually to a bare SATA Drive you will need regular SATA cable and a Molex to SATA Power cable.

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=8795&seq=1&format=2

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022601&p_id=8775&seq=1&format=2

So, for less then $3.31 + $0.28 + $ 0.57 + ship, you can reduce anxiety and think clear into the future. :thumbsup: - :biggrin:

I'm probably gonna go for this.

 

[Kneedragger]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. At an effective data rate of 3.2 Gb/s (400 MB/s) after encoding and protocol overhead, USB 3.0 is far faster than any mechanical drive, and will not significantly bottleneck most SSDs.

Well on my PC moving a large file to USB 3.0 I see around 50 MB/s. Same file from HD to HD on the same PC I see around 90-96 MB/s.

 

[imagoon]

Well on my PC moving a large file to USB 3.0 I see around 50 MB/s. Same file from HD to HD on the same PC I see around 90-96 MB/s.

Use a faster HDD in the 3.0 enclosure. You will see a difference if the internals are new 7200RPM high end drives and copying to a cheap and slow 5400RPM drive in a 3.0 USB enclosure.

 

[Kneedragger]

Use a faster HDD in the 3.0 enclosure. You will see a difference if the internals are new 7200RPM high end drives and copying to a cheap and slow 5400RPM drive in a 3.0 USB enclosure.

I'll take a look at the HD in the enclosure and see if I get faster transfer swapping to a different drive.

 

[corkyg]

If you used a SATA mobile rack, it would let you connect SATA drives directly to your PC SATA ports to include power. These work well for me:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817986001

Close up labeled:

 

[mfenn]

Use a faster HDD in the 3.0 enclosure. You will see a difference if the internals are new 7200RPM high end drives and copying to a cheap and slow 5400RPM drive in a 3.0 USB enclosure.

Yep. The actual bus is capable of much more than 50 MB/s. As an example, you can look at the charts here. That's 1.52 GB of a real file mix in ~11.5 seconds. That works out to 135 MB/s.

 

[Cerb]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. At an effective data rate of 3.2 Gb/s (400 MB/s) after encoding and protocol overhead, USB 3.0 is far faster than any mechanical drive, and will not significantly bottleneck most SSDs.

In practice, I've found SSDs can be significantly bottlenecked, compared to internal or eSATA. That, much like USB 2, different bridges and host controllers perform differently (FI, I have an enclosure that maxes out around 100MBps on a 7-series Intel, but can do nearly 200MBps from an add-on Asmedia chip on an older PC). But, it's worth the convenience, IMO, since the random speeds are still really great, and it can plug into any PC's USB port and work. That 100MBps sequential issue doesn't keep it from doing 50MBps random :twisted:.

For an HDD, though, any significant speed differences are almost assuredly OS caching and buffering settings, and not the USB bridge, nor USB 3.0 itself. Most USB 3 bridges can do 150MBps+, which is plenty to get the most practical performance out of any HDD today.

One advantage for the internal dock option, however, is that you can be guaranteed to be able to boot from, check SMART on, and run diag software on, the HDD, whereas that doesn't always work with USB bridges.