Clueless Computer Question? Help me salvage these drives!
February 6, 2018 1:01 PM Subscribe
I built myself a computer several years ago and it ceased to function properly about a year ago. So I bought a laptop to replace it -- but the old PC has a bunch of working SATA drives in it. What's the best way to harvest and use these drives with my new laptop?
So I built myself a computer several years ago and it ceased to function properly about a year ago. I think it's an issue with the mobo, CPU, or GPU and I haven't had the money or time (or honestly, the patience) to troubleshoot it. So I bought a laptop to replace it and it's all fine and dandy, but it has no optical drive and it only has a 1TB drive*. The computer I built has a bunch of working SATA drives in it. What's the best way to harvest and use these drives with my new laptop?
So I have a 1TB internal HHD (3.5"), a 120GB internal SSD (2.5"), and an optical drive (5.25") (no link because I got it from Fry's and I can't remember which one it is). They're all SATA drives.
I own this SSD enclosure for a reason I can't remember so if I really need to get the info on the SSD I can, but it's not a good long term solution because it's SATA only and I have to use a fiddly SATA to USB adapter (and it's only 2.0).
And I know that I can buy SATA to USB enclosures of all sizes, although it appears that it would be cheaper to buy a new optical drive than to buy a 5.25" enclosure for it. And I can purchase this enclosure for the 1TB HDD. But what I'm wondering is -- is there a better option than buying three different enclosures or a new optical drive?
While I was searching Amazon I found this hard drive docking station, which is a thing that I had no idea existed. The idea is tempting, but there's no enclosure for the drive itself, but is that important if I don't plan on moving the drives often?
Do they make enclosures that will hold more than a few drives? Something like this?
And am I just going to have to let the optical drive go and get a new one? I really hate the new slimline portable optical drives. They're super loud.
What product do I need? And how can I pay as little for it as possible?
* I think back to 1996 when I first learned that terabyte drives existed and that they cost HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. At the time my boyfriend's computer had 8mb of ram and a 250mb HDD and it cost over $7,000 in 2017 dollars. I am STILL amazed at the price of memory and storage these days.
So I built myself a computer several years ago and it ceased to function properly about a year ago. I think it's an issue with the mobo, CPU, or GPU and I haven't had the money or time (or honestly, the patience) to troubleshoot it. So I bought a laptop to replace it and it's all fine and dandy, but it has no optical drive and it only has a 1TB drive*. The computer I built has a bunch of working SATA drives in it. What's the best way to harvest and use these drives with my new laptop?
So I have a 1TB internal HHD (3.5"), a 120GB internal SSD (2.5"), and an optical drive (5.25") (no link because I got it from Fry's and I can't remember which one it is). They're all SATA drives.
I own this SSD enclosure for a reason I can't remember so if I really need to get the info on the SSD I can, but it's not a good long term solution because it's SATA only and I have to use a fiddly SATA to USB adapter (and it's only 2.0).
And I know that I can buy SATA to USB enclosures of all sizes, although it appears that it would be cheaper to buy a new optical drive than to buy a 5.25" enclosure for it. And I can purchase this enclosure for the 1TB HDD. But what I'm wondering is -- is there a better option than buying three different enclosures or a new optical drive?
While I was searching Amazon I found this hard drive docking station, which is a thing that I had no idea existed. The idea is tempting, but there's no enclosure for the drive itself, but is that important if I don't plan on moving the drives often?
Do they make enclosures that will hold more than a few drives? Something like this?
And am I just going to have to let the optical drive go and get a new one? I really hate the new slimline portable optical drives. They're super loud.
What product do I need? And how can I pay as little for it as possible?
* I think back to 1996 when I first learned that terabyte drives existed and that they cost HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. At the time my boyfriend's computer had 8mb of ram and a 250mb HDD and it cost over $7,000 in 2017 dollars. I am STILL amazed at the price of memory and storage these days.
I would:
* Consolidate the two external hard drives into one (maybe copy the SSD files to your laptop and keep the 1TB external hard drive).
* Buy whatever adapter/enclosure that you like for the existing hard drive, or just buy a new 1TB slimline external USB drive for not much more money ($50).
* Buy a slimline external USB DVD drive that you can store and plug in when needed, rather than monkeying around with the 5.25" internal drive. Amazon has one for $25. I'm assuming you don't need Blu Ray.
posted by cnc at 2:52 PM on February 6, 2018
* Consolidate the two external hard drives into one (maybe copy the SSD files to your laptop and keep the 1TB external hard drive).
* Buy whatever adapter/enclosure that you like for the existing hard drive, or just buy a new 1TB slimline external USB drive for not much more money ($50).
* Buy a slimline external USB DVD drive that you can store and plug in when needed, rather than monkeying around with the 5.25" internal drive. Amazon has one for $25. I'm assuming you don't need Blu Ray.
posted by cnc at 2:52 PM on February 6, 2018
Response by poster: I don't need Blu-Ray, but I already have a slimline DVD-RW (which I hate because it's SUPER NOISY!!!!) and I'd like another drive that I can set to another region because I have several PAL discs from the UK and I have no way to play them since I stupidly got rid of my DVD player a year ago because I never used it -- except I did and I didn't even think about it. Oops.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:42 PM on February 6, 2018
posted by elsietheeel at 3:42 PM on February 6, 2018
As long as the docking station is put somewhere sturdy and where it's unlikely to be tipped over, the drives should be just fine with living there long-term.
I'm not sure the optical drive is worth doing much about, but if you don't need to move it much you'd probably be fine with jury-rigging a SATA-to-USB3 adapter to it and putting adhesive-backed rubber feet on the bottom of it. You'll probably need to power it separately, however. The Wirecutter has a recommendation for a quiet external DVD drive.
posted by Aleyn at 10:15 PM on February 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure the optical drive is worth doing much about, but if you don't need to move it much you'd probably be fine with jury-rigging a SATA-to-USB3 adapter to it and putting adhesive-backed rubber feet on the bottom of it. You'll probably need to power it separately, however. The Wirecutter has a recommendation for a quiet external DVD drive.
posted by Aleyn at 10:15 PM on February 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
Optical drives fail relatively frequently. SATA hard drives fail, and age increases the failure rate. The advantage of SSD is speed, so if your current boot drive is not SSD, I would make the SSD the boot drive in your current computer (if it's laptop-sized). Back up data to the 1 Tb drive and have a copy on the data drive of the current computer. I've seen many hard drives in non-standard enclosures. They need to be protected from excessive dust, moisture and bouncing around, and should have a couple air holes. Obv., the optical drive needs a little more customization.
posted by theora55 at 10:03 AM on February 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by theora55 at 10:03 AM on February 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
While I was searching Amazon I found this hard drive docking station, which is a thing that I had no idea existed. The idea is tempting, but there's no enclosure for the drive itself, but is that important if I don't plan on moving the drives often?
If you don't plan on being klutzy and knocking the thing over, they're fine. A little slower than using the SATA interface.
I use mine pretty often for recovering stuff from bare drives. You can get a single-bay one for pretty cheap (~$25) but you might want a double-bay one if you're going to copy files between the drives.
posted by neckro23 at 10:45 AM on February 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
If you don't plan on being klutzy and knocking the thing over, they're fine. A little slower than using the SATA interface.
I use mine pretty often for recovering stuff from bare drives. You can get a single-bay one for pretty cheap (~$25) but you might want a double-bay one if you're going to copy files between the drives.
posted by neckro23 at 10:45 AM on February 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: The boot drive in my laptop is an SSD, so I'm okay there. And I'm good at building stuff and I already own a million boxes and stuff, so making my own enclosures is a fun idea. Especially since I only plan on using the old optical drive to access my PAL/Region 2 DVDs. It doesn't even have to work for long, just long enough for me to Handbrake the darn things.
Also I'm pretty klutzy (for instance, I haven't touched the laptop itself since the day I bought it). It's closed and on a shelf and I use a wireless keyboard and an external monitor. I've destroyed too many electronic items with spilled drinks and the like (although I use a lidded cup at all times now and since I'm sober there's no more drunk computing).
So if I don't get a dock or a dedicated enclosure then I need SATA to USB dongle type thingies, right?
I have one from when I tried to rescue a drive lost to aforementioned drunk computing and open container, but it's USB2.0, and I should probably get one that does 3.0?
(Also thank you everyone for your answers so far, I'm learning a lot but also I feel like I'm not as clueless as I thought I was!)
posted by elsietheeel at 11:09 AM on February 7, 2018
Also I'm pretty klutzy (for instance, I haven't touched the laptop itself since the day I bought it). It's closed and on a shelf and I use a wireless keyboard and an external monitor. I've destroyed too many electronic items with spilled drinks and the like (although I use a lidded cup at all times now and since I'm sober there's no more drunk computing).
So if I don't get a dock or a dedicated enclosure then I need SATA to USB dongle type thingies, right?
I have one from when I tried to rescue a drive lost to aforementioned drunk computing and open container, but it's USB2.0, and I should probably get one that does 3.0?
(Also thank you everyone for your answers so far, I'm learning a lot but also I feel like I'm not as clueless as I thought I was!)
posted by elsietheeel at 11:09 AM on February 7, 2018
Assuming that your USB 2.0 dongle has a separate power lead that plugs into a power outlet, it should be fine for your optical drive; it's unlikely that it will read fast enough to saturate even a USB 2 connection.
posted by Aleyn at 12:40 PM on February 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Aleyn at 12:40 PM on February 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: It does have separate power, so that's good to know. So the optical drive is taken care of.
I'm still debating what to do about the HDD. I can access the SSD, get the data off it, and just let it go. It's only 120 gigs. I'll keep it around for when I finally feel patient enough to figure out what's wrong with the PC. But I don't like letting a TB of space just go unused. Part of me wants to just get an enclosure for it, the other part of me thinks a dock would be good.
Additionally, I have several other external HDDs for which I've misplaced the power supplies, so I'm wondering if I could pull them out of their enclosures and stick them in the dock to copy the data off and then let them go. Problems: all three are Mac formatted. One is USB, two are 6-connector FireWire. If a dock would work with those then I'd definitely be swayed.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:10 PM on February 7, 2018
I'm still debating what to do about the HDD. I can access the SSD, get the data off it, and just let it go. It's only 120 gigs. I'll keep it around for when I finally feel patient enough to figure out what's wrong with the PC. But I don't like letting a TB of space just go unused. Part of me wants to just get an enclosure for it, the other part of me thinks a dock would be good.
Additionally, I have several other external HDDs for which I've misplaced the power supplies, so I'm wondering if I could pull them out of their enclosures and stick them in the dock to copy the data off and then let them go. Problems: all three are Mac formatted. One is USB, two are 6-connector FireWire. If a dock would work with those then I'd definitely be swayed.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:10 PM on February 7, 2018
Typically the drives inside the enclosures are SATA (or IDE for very old drives) and there's just some additional circuitry to make them work over Firewire or USB, so it's likely a dock would work for them as well, once you got them out.
Reading Mac formatted drives is an issue of software rather than hardware; so long as the drive has a SATA connector, they'll work with the dock.
posted by Aleyn at 11:57 PM on February 9, 2018
Reading Mac formatted drives is an issue of software rather than hardware; so long as the drive has a SATA connector, they'll work with the dock.
posted by Aleyn at 11:57 PM on February 9, 2018
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My 1st hard drive was 40 meg and cost a lot more than my memory will dredge up. Laptop I'm on is an older Thinkpad that was 165 used and is fast and reliable. Cheap drive space, cheap RAM, it's nifty to have these things, but I wish the greedy bastidges at Time-Warner-Spectrum-Charter would make bandwidth a bit less pricey.
posted by theora55 at 1:23 PM on February 6, 2018 [2 favorites]