What is the thing that add harddisk outside a PC?

[NervousNovice]

My friend told me there is something that allow me to put a harddisk outside the case and connect it using a USB. What is that thing? (I only know adapter card can give extra IDE ports.)

Is it a rack this one here? What is a rack by the way?

What is an external enclosure like this one here?

Thanks.

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: NervousNovice
My friend told me there is something that allow me to put a harddisk outside the case and connect it using a USB. What is that thing? (I only know adapter card can give extra IDE ports.)

Is it a rack this one here? What is a rack by the way?

What is an external enclosure like this one here?

Thanks.

the second

a rack is something you put in a front bay, like where you cdrom sits, so you can have a hard drive you can remove now and then (only when pc is turned off)
a external enclosure allows you to have a hdd that is stand alone, meaning it is powered by its own power system and connects to the pc via usb (or firewire, scsi etc)

D

 

[NervousNovice]

So a rack by itself cannot give me an extra IDE port and it merely put the harddisk at the front? i.e. if I run out of those 4 IDE port and if I dun want to get an adapter card, then I must use external enclosure?

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: NervousNovice
So a rack by itself cannot give me an extra IDE port and it merely put the harddisk at the front? i.e. if I run out of those 4 IDE port and if I dun want to get an adapter card, then I must use external enclosure?

yeah pretty much
Id recommend firewire though, better than usb for this kind of ventures



D

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: NervousNovice
So a rack by itself cannot give me an extra IDE port and it merely put the harddisk at the front? i.e. if I run out of those 4 IDE port and if I dun want to get an adapter card, then I must use external enclosure?

Correct.

- M4H

 

[NervousNovice]

And what's the different between 2.5", 3.5", and 5.25" external enclosure? What is that size refering to?

 

[ZL1]

Originally posted by: NervousNovice
And what's the different between 2.5", 3.5", and 5.25" external enclosure? What is that size refering to?

2.5 good only for 2.5 hard drives, laptop drives
3.5 good for your regular drives
5.25 good for cdroms and regular drives with small adapters


D