IDE Hard Drive Enclosure (for old drives)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tripecac
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Tripecac

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Hi, I recenty bought two 200GB drives to replace my two *very* crowded 45GB drives. I'm excited about gaining the extra elbow-room for audio files, but I don't know what to do with the old drives (my other PCs don't have room for them).

I would love to be able to use those old drives for backups, to plug a 45GB into a PC (ideally w/o having to power-down the PC), backup overnight, and then voila, it's like having 50 or 60 CDRs of backups!

I've read briefly about hard drive enclosures but am definitely a newbie to it. People seem to be worried about (1) power, (2) brands, and (3) heat. I'm assuming that USB might have a tough time supplying enough power to run a big hard drive... and that different brand hard drives work better with different enclosures, and that the encloser might need a certain type of fan or vent or that the hard disk might not be able to run for very long...

So here's are questions:

1) Is anyone running a ~45GB IBM GXP75 (yes, the ones with the horrid failure rates) in an IDE Hard Drive enclosure? If so, what type of enclosure is it and would you recommend it?

2) Is there a good PC Hardware site that would give me a "primer" into issues like this, without catering to bleeding-edge hardware? I don't care about the latest graphics cards, or the fastest motherboards... I *do* care about finding the most reliable (and affordable) ways to maintain [PC] hardware within a home studio/office.

Thanks!

Travis

p.s. Fortunately, I don't care about noise, since I don't plan on recording when an "external" drive is connected; it is for backup only.
 
TigerDirect.com has the enclosures your asking about, cheap.
Although you could lay the hd on a piece of foam in the bottom of your case if you don`t have an availible slot, and connect it as a slave on either of your IDE controllers.
 
An external USB drive box is a good idea if you're using those drives for backups, but try to find one with an integral PSU. The one I have has a seperate psu box which isn't too convenient.

I bet the old IBM drive will be just as happy in a 5.25" removable drive bay - most have a little fan in the back and you can get aluminum drive trays if heat concerns you but they cost more. Some of the plastic ones are very cheap.
But Win XP doesn't seem to cope too well with removable IDE hard drives and will bounce around your drive letters depending on if the drives are in or not. Win 98 had the option of marking the drive as removable in hardware properties but I can't find that option in XP.
XP copes perfectly well with drives mounted in USB boxes though, and assigns the next available drive letter without altering your fixed drives and also names the drive as removable.
 
For me, case space isn't the issue. I don't need more than 3 hard disks in the music PC (a 60GB for OS and apps, a 200GB for audio, a 200GB for backup). Those plus the CDRW fill up all 4 IDE slots.

I suppose I could get a PCI card which lets me connect more drives, but I'm worried about how much power 5 hard drives would need. I had to upgrade my PSU once to handle 3 hard disks, and don't want to do that again.

Plus, I don't trust those 45GB drives for daily use anymore. I've already had two IBM 45GBs go bad, and one of the current ones is making whirring and clicking noises! :( As off-site backups they'd be great, however, which is why I'd like to use them externally.

Do "enclosed" ide drives work like digital cameras? I have a camera where I plug it into a PC's USB and can instantly access its files, without having to install anything on the PC. If external IDE drives can work the same way, that'd be awesome!!!

I don' t mind having to use an external power supply for the hard drive, and I don't mind noise or slowness. I just want something reliable that I can plug in, access, and unplug with the PC running (like a digital camera). As long as it doesn't screw up my current drive letters (C - I) I'll be happy.

Ideas?

Travis
 
Yeh, the external drive boxes are just as convenient as flash memory cameras to manage in Windows - no need to install special drivers - it's a generic USB "mass storage device" as Microsoft have it.

These are popular...
http://www.adstech.com/products/USBX_835/intro/USBX835_intro.asp?pid=USBX835

Mine is a generic made in Taiwan job so I won't bother giving details.
I use mine as a general IDE drive host, I don't screw everything together and fit whatever drive I need. They can take anything IDE - HDD, CD, Zip and even laptop drives with a suitable adapter cable. Useful to have. A HDD on USB2.0 is a fast mover for large amount of data too.
 
Jim -

Thanks for the reply! I went ahead and ordered a very basic USB HD enclosure, for less than $30! If I like it then maybe I can get a "fancy" (screwless, firewire, cdrom-supporting) one later. I'm anxious to try it out! :)

Thanks again,

Travis
 
Here's a follow-up for people who stumble upon this thread later -

The HD Enclosure I ordered ("Metal Gear Box") works great! It's cheap, easy to use, and didn't require any drivers in XP. It was basically just plug and play!

The only problem I had was not realizing that I had to format a disk before being able to access it via My Computer or Explorer.

Travis
 
Tripecac said:

The only problem I had was not realizing that I had to format a disk before being able to access it via My Computer or Explorer.

Travis
Click to expand...
If you put in a drive that is already formatted and contains data, is that data accessable via this convertor?
 
Yes, it's amazingly simple to use.

Here's how it works:

Code: 
PC  <--usb--> enclosure <--ide/power-> disk
                  |
              wall power
1) put your IDE drive inside the enclosure
2) connect the drive's IDE and POWER to the enclosure's interface
3) connect the enclosure's power to the wall
4) turn on the enclosure
5) plug the enclosure into the PC (via USB)
6) the PC should automatically assign the drive a letter
7) use the drive like any other drive

For XP, I didn't need to install any drivers; it was truly plug and play.

The only downside is that at USB speeds it's slower than an internal IDE (copying 20 GB took me about 6 hours). I haven't tried it with high-speed USB yet.

Travis

p.s. I don't think XPs failure to assign a drive letter to my new (unformatted) hard drive was because of the enclosure; I think XP would've done the same thing for any unformatted drive, internal or external.
 
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