Recommend a Portable Hard Drive Enclosure?

August 9, 2009 10:59 PM

I've recieved two hard drives for free from my father. I'm thinking I could sell one or both. However, I'm also thinking I could turn it into a portable external hard drive for storing my photos. I need recommendation on enclosures.

The first hard drive is a Maxtor Model:6b200s0 200GB SATA drive. The other is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB SATA (Model:st3400832as).

Any and all ideas are welcome. As I said, the best idea I could come up with is to turn one into an external portable HD to connect via USB to the various laptops I have. This would allow me a central location for my photography collection.

I'm looking for a reliable enclosure. Anyone currently using one that has lasted more than 2 years?

Thanks in advance!

posted by InvestorMD to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Pretty much any SATA to USB enclosure will be fine. I tend to prefer metal enclosures, but the plastic ones are just as good.

Reviews for external enclosures and hard drives are often heavily negatively biased biased. When your drive or enclosure works, you don't write a review about it. When it fails, you often do.


I've had a pair of AcomData 320 GB external drives that I've been using without trouble for more than a year. The drives have been completely flawless for me, but the reviews on Amazon suggest that they are horrible.

When USB to IDE bridges first came out some of the early ones had trouble supporting large drives. That no longer seems to be an issue, so you can buy anything that looks nice.
posted by b1tr0t at 11:03 PM on August 9

Anyone currently using one that has lasted more than 2 years?

Yeah, but it's just yum-cha brand. HD enclosures are not a very tricky thing to build.
posted by pompomtom at 11:04 PM on August 9

You don't mention what size the drives are, and I'm too lazy to look. The following describes enclosures for 3.5" (that is, standard desktop computer) drives.

I've used three external enclosures that work with SATA drives: two NexStar 3 enclosures and one Cooler Master X-Craft. All three work fine, though I slightly prefer the feel of the CoolerMaster enclosure.

By the way, all three of these enclosures are for 3.5" drives and come with external power supplies. I find these just inconvenient enough that I almost never carry the drives with me.

If you want something really portable, you probably want an enclosure for a 2.5" drive. CostCo and probably other places have external drives in the 500G - 1TB range powered by USB.
posted by zippy at 11:07 PM on August 9

a) There's probably not much point in selling them. Drives of that size, new, are going for about $50. Used, I wouldn't pay more than $20 for each.

b) Just about any enclosure will work for 2 years. I've never had an enclosure go bad, and I've always used whatever was cheapest at the time. Every time an external drive has stopped working, I've thrown in a new drive and it's worked. It's never been the enclosure hardware. (It's solid state. Unless it cooks or gets fried, there's nothing to wear out.)
posted by Netzapper at 12:34 AM on August 10

Pretty much any SATA to USB enclosure will be fine. I tend to prefer metal enclosures, but the plastic ones are just as good.

No, no, all the cool kids have Docking Stations now.
posted by @troy at 1:43 AM on August 10

Also, go for the gold with eSATA. I've got a eSATA ExpressCard for my MBP and it kicks all ass over FW800, don't even get me started on USB.
posted by @troy at 1:45 AM on August 10

I have a Vantec NexStar that I'm pretty happy with. It's low profile, and it's aluminum (which means passive cooling). I'd avoid any with fans in them (active cooling) because that's just adding more ambient noise unnecessarily.

Since you have two HDs you should probably get a dual-HD enclosure, this Vantec one is dock-style, or you could just go to a site like newegg and look up "dual enclosure" and pick one that fits your asthetic, and read the reviews.
posted by tybeet at 6:01 AM on August 10

I disagree with those who don't like enclosures with cooling fans. Heat is probably the primary cause of HD failure and I would rather put up with some fan noise than prematurely replace a HD or loose data.

I also like the Vantec enclosures but there are other good brands too. I also think that Newegg.com is a good company to buy one from.
posted by 14580 at 7:18 AM on August 10