Resolved: [PLUG] USB IDE Enclosures - Recommended Reading

[Richard C. Steffens]

Thanks to both of you for the ideas. I'll take all your comments into
consideration when I get to the point of buying one of these.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens



Paul Mullen wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 11:21:27AM -0700, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
>> Can someone point me to recommended reading on USB IDE enclosures?

> I don't know of any recommended reading. There are only a few points
> you really need to worry about:
> 
> 1) What interfaces the enclosure supports (both to the hard drive and
> to the host system). More interfaces, more money.
> 
> 2) What capacity of hard drive the enclosure's chip set supports.
> ENU's web site states this in the details for each enclosure.
> 
> 3) Quality, reliability, etc. are all important, but a little more
> difficult to determine short of gathering up personal recommendations.
> 
> As for personal recommendations, I bought this CoolMax-branded
> IDE/USB 2.0 enclosure from ENU several months ago:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817146066
> 
> I'm pretty sure it's what ENU calls an "OEM" enclosure:
> http://www.enuinc.com/encl-oem-002-black.html
> 
> It has a steel case with plastic end caps, made to vaguely resemble a
> book; includes a plastic stand that the enclosure slides into; odd
> graphical decorations on the sides. Feels pretty sturdy, and works
> just fine.

Robert Citek wrote:
> Like Paul, I don't know of any reading.  But another thing to consider
> is heat dissipation.  I once got an enclosure that worked great as
> long as you left the drive exposed.  If I assembled the entire
> enclosure, the drive would overheat and then fail.
>
> For a bit of an out-of-the-box idea, if you don't need an enclosure,
> you could use a USB drive adapter.  This one takes SATA, 3.5" PATA,
> and laptop drives and converts to USB 2.0:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HJ99DI
>
> We've got them at work and they've been great for backups, restores,
> transferring large files, etc.  The largest drive we've tried has been
> 250 GB and it worked just fine.
>
> Too bad they don't come in FireWire or dual USB2/FW.