what do I need to make an internal hard drive an external?

[michaels]

?

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

A ide to usb connection.

 

[michaels]

Ok, but what about an enclosure?

 

[MichaelD]

It's a two step decision process.

1. You need an external enclosure with internal connectivity to match your drive. I.E. if the HD is IDE, you need one of those, if SATA, one of those.

2. You need to decide on your connectivity. USB or Firewire.

Check this thread for more info.

 

[corkyg]

1. Decide on an external enclosure. As was stated, it can be Firewire or USB - or both. (A bit more $$$ but worth it IMHO.) Just make sure the case has its own power source.

2. Remove the internal drive from the computer.

3. Mount it in the external case.

4. With the computer running, hot plug it. It should give you a couple of chimes and a "found new device" message. It will end up as a lettered drive.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: corkyg
1. Decide on an external enclosure. As was stated, it can be Firewire or USB - or both. (A bit more $$$ but worth it IMHO.) Just make sure the case has its own power source.

QFT. I find FW a more reliable connection than USB.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
QFT. I find FW a more reliable connection than USB.

No argument there. All mine are 1394, but with USB ports in case I need to use them on someone else's 'puter sans FW.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Oyeve
QFT. I find FW a more reliable connection than USB.

No argument there. All mine are 1394, but with USB ports in case I need to use them on someone else's 'puter sans FW.

True. I use a Buslink that has USB2, FW and Esata. This way all my bases are covered. I even have 3 partions, one is fat32 one is NTFS and the other is mac os (unix) so no matter what computer is out there I can back it up.

 

[chansigrilian]

my firewire was decent but i prefer usb2.0 now.

easy thing to do, purchase enclosures off newegg, as others have said match your drive type.

have 4 currently, most importantly a 40gb backup drive only for my 3 rigs :thumbsup:

others 120gb/160gb/250gb are media storage.

internal drives with enclosures ftw! cost effective solution 🙂 good luck with it.

 

[Dman877]

If you will be transporting it a lot, go with a notebook drive. They cost a bit more but they're much smaller and they don't need an ac power adapter like 3.5inch drives do.