rolling your own external HDs

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

yo!!

so i work with external (largely lacie FW) harddrives a lot because i do video stuff. i wanna get a new one, less for "active" video work than for backup--photos, vids, music etc. FW or USB2, it doesn't really matter (though i guess i'd marginally prefer FW cuz one of my work computers only has USB1).

so these things still cost some cash. i figure maybe what i'll do is just buy a 80-160GB internal HD, maxtor or western digital or something, and stick it in a USB2 or FW casing. trouble is, i can only find one brand of these at the computer stores i've been to, and they cost $80 (~$60-65 US)!! which hardly makes it worth it--there doesn't seem to be much of a savings. should they be this expensive? am i doing the right thing? anyone have any other suggestions? THX!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 01:52 (twenty years ago)

I feel old. :(

― Rufus 3000 (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:05 (twenty years ago)

err, s1ocki -- you're refering to the cost of just the drive enclosure right? I got mine for like $25 bucks online.

― I'm Hi, Jared Fogle (ex machina), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:08 (twenty years ago)

yeah, just the enclosure!! ok good to know

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:09 (twenty years ago)

any particular vendor you'd recommend?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:09 (twenty years ago)

yeah, those shouldn't be expensive... i've seen 'em at ChumpUSA for $30-40.

― stockholm cindy (from norway) (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:11 (twenty years ago)

slocki i run three bytecc enclosures from ncix.com and they've all worked great.

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:15 (twenty years ago)

how much you pay for them mark?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

& will i need to get a power adapter?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:19 (twenty years ago)

what do we think of this sleek little number?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:19 (twenty years ago)

$50 each, dunno why they're so expensive now:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=11639&vpn=ME-350U2F&manufacture=Bytecc%20Inc

(xpost no they come with power supplies. BUT, as im finding out, they're very hard to replace should you, say, break a pin in one of the connectors (sorry soulseek))

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:21 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i would get that black one.

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:22 (twenty years ago)

oh i didn't see the $73.50 ones, i was looking at this one

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:23 (twenty years ago)

also, does anyone play favourites in re: HD brands?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:24 (twenty years ago)

that one looks okay, no firewire though. also, this is a silly thing but make sure whatever you get comes with a plastic moulding that allows you to stand it up on its side (minor overheat precationary measure + more asthetically pleasing).

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:26 (twenty years ago)

hahaha! well to be honest since this is largely gonna be a backup drive it'll probably not have a chance to overheat.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:31 (twenty years ago)

Has anyone tried hooking up 2 ATA drives to one FW enclosure?

― I'm Hi, Jared Fogle (ex machina), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:32 (twenty years ago)

how would you do that? can you daisy chain atas?

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:35 (twenty years ago)

xposts - I bought one of the new Maxtor 300GB 16MB cache drives for my Mac - it's quiet and fast but more expensive than most. The Seagate Barracudas are supposed to be the quietest.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:35 (twenty years ago)

hmm now i'm wondering if i should get a bus-powered little guy... guessing this'll drive up the HD price though

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:38 (twenty years ago)

maybe this'll hit the spot

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:41 (twenty years ago)

so... many... choices...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:42 (twenty years ago)

paralyzed... by... internet... economy... unchecked... capitalism...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:42 (twenty years ago)

is it worth the 4 extra bucks for this? seems... sleeker? and the bytecc one has people complaining about overheating... or at least gettin' really hot.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:51 (twenty years ago)

you can use one of these and keep your drive in a cardboard box if you want.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 03:24 (twenty years ago)

how much is a cardboard box? where should i order one?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 03:27 (twenty years ago)

oh crap actually I might have been confused about the function of that gadget I linked to, as there are reportedly high-quality enclosures (with an actual enclosed part) going for the same price.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 03:29 (twenty years ago)

hmm

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 04:14 (twenty years ago)

s1locki, I have the enclosure seen there and it was great and a lot cheaper than that. my only complaint is the SIZE -- HONKING HUGE!!! and the NOISE. It puts out a ton of fan noise that my 250 gig LaCie premade does not. The LaCie is so small too. But it is nice to have firewire and usb. Right now I only use the bytecc for backups.

― I'm Hi, Jared Fogle (ex machina), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 07:07 (twenty years ago)

that seems like one of the only ones i was looking at with a fan... i'm not sure i need one!! size doesn't really matter (haha) in this case as it's mostly for offsite backup and will likely be sitting in my closet most of the time...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

I was thinking you could just disable the fan but, I only use it for backups.....

― I'm Hi, Jared Fogle (ex machina), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

revive

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 12 August 2005 14:50 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

so how easy is this to do? i'm not an amazingly technical person, but if this is simple enough to do, it seems like the best way of getting tons of storage for way less money. any thoughts?

― colette (a2lette), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 20:50 (twenty years ago)

p.s., this is the one i was looking at:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1696315&CatId=136

― colette (a2lette), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

hah, I'm just getting ready to do this (again) myself collette. I have three external hard drives and have gone this route every time.

that's a good price.

It's very simple to do.

All you will probably need is a small phillips-head screwdriver.

You take the hard drive out of the package, you open up the enclosure, you plug in the wirestrip (can't think of the technical name, but it's completely easy), you put the enclosure back together and put in the small screws, power down your system, then you plug everything in and turn everything on.

With Macs (like I'm on) you never need to install driver software for the hard drive but if you are on a PC you might need to. That's easy as well.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 8 December 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

I have one of these...

My ibook screwed the "disk geometry" up requiring a reformat before I could view it again in anything (i.e. IDE inside Windows PC). It subsequently failed to do *anything*, even register it as being connected on every single combination of format and jumper setting I tried (surely all of them).

My windows PC insists I am plugging it into a lo-speed (USB 1.1) hub, when I know for absolute certain I am DEFINITELY not, and won't let me look at the contents even at the low speed. No end of faffing with drivers, patches, Windows updates and heavy googling has yet managed to get it working. I am frustrated. Good luck people!

― fandango (fandango), Thursday, 8 December 2005 02:41 (twenty years ago)

yes, the enclosures can be a bit of a crapshoot. Some of them suck outright. I buy my enclosures from newegg.com...they are rated there by users, which is nice. personally, I'm going to buy one of those 300 gig drives from tiger (you have to do the rebate thing, which I loathe) and pick up a firewire drive from newegg.

I've had one enclosure fail on me, and one of the ones I have now can be a little tempermental...when that enclosure failed, I thought it was my hard drive dying (ah, the fear of 230 gigs of music evaporating) but luckily it was only the enclosure. I put the drive in a new enclosure and all was good.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 8 December 2005 03:04 (twenty years ago)

I scored a fibre channel to scsi interface box today. So, hypothetically,
I could hang eight ultra-scsi storage arrays off my computer with just
two strands of fiber. Mmmmmmmm.

― shieldforyoureyes, Thursday, 8 December 2005 06:12 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

how are the wireless enclosures doing?

http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=12&l2=44&l3=0&model=460&modelmenu=1

― terry lennox. (gareth), Friday, 30 December 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

okay, I think I have to do this now. Will probably just get that Seagate + enclosure upthread that Collette linked to, as the price and size are both right. Warn me against it if necessary!

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Sunday, 19 February 2006 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

OR:
http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=005935&cid=HD.443
+
some kind of enclosure they have that may or may not suck:
http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=008942&cid=516

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Sunday, 19 February 2006 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

The Bytecc enclosure isn't bad - I have one - but I also have this, and find that it looks nicer and generates less heat:

http://www.nspiregear.com/352C.asp

Dead cheap, too - $40.00 Canuck.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Sunday, 19 February 2006 19:31 (nineteen years ago)

i want an enclosure that generates MORE heat, MORE excitement, MORE buzz.

― slocki chez antexit (antexit), Sunday, 19 February 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

Well, the drive does spontaneously generate porn movies in hi-res Quicktime format, so that is a plus.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Sunday, 19 February 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks for the input, T.
Thanks for the roffles, S.
Hott Hott Harddrive. ew.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Sunday, 19 February 2006 21:55 (nineteen years ago)

okay, I think I'm going to go SATA. LESS heat, LESS buzz, but MORE excitement? Well, I am excited about it...
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=119638&sku=TSD-250M
and, enclosure-wise:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1648629&sku=K450-1082
(That one reminds me of new Battlestar Galactica. Which is A Good Thing.)

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Monday, 20 February 2006 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

I don't understand what this thread is about.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 February 2006 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.wwnorton.com/nd/fall98/gifs/HD.gif

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 February 2006 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha
(cute)
external hard drives that are made of a regular hard drive and an enclosure! roll your own! and this revive is about me and my love of tech things but also me and my limited knowledge of tech things. and how much i want a bunch of information to exist in one little box.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Monday, 20 February 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

What is an enclosure? How is this different from my ordinary external hard drive?

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 February 2006 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 24 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

so, what's a good firewire enclosure?

― toby (tsg20), Monday, 1 May 2006 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

i like my nexstar 2... firewire AND usb2. and glowing blue lights!!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 1 May 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

if you want cool looking usb enclosures:
http://gizmodo.com/images/2006/04/tiki_usb.jpg

― JW (ex machina), Monday, 1 May 2006 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

oh wtf, it isn't even a drive?

― JW (ex machina), Monday, 1 May 2006 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

yeah that enclosure looks cool if you're using usb. a dual firewire/usb enclosure would be neato, but probably not necessary for the extra money...

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 1 May 2006 19:27 (nineteen years ago)

it cost pretty much the same as the usb-only ones! if not less!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 1 May 2006 19:28 (nineteen years ago)

cool, i've ordered them both, and noticed that it's from fry's electronics, which sponsors a math institute that toby visited! they don't seem to give math discounts, though.

thanks for the advice, hopefully it will actually turn up this time...

― colette (a2lette), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 02:16 (nineteen years ago)

colette are you in the usa now? it's hard to keep up with you and lauren and various transatlanticists.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 02:29 (nineteen years ago)

yep, i'm in cambridge MA for another couple days (toby's here for another two weeks), then driving back to michigan and then to london on sunday. i'm dreading going back to work after such a long holiday!

thanks so much for your advice about drives, there's such a huge selection that i find it completely paralyzing.

― colette (a2lette), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 03:04 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

well, it's all made up, and on plugging it in for the first time i get a big red exclaimation mark, saying "Disk Insertion - The disk you inserted was note readable by this computer.", and offering me the choice of Initialize..., Ignore, or Eject. Any clues?!

(This is on Tiger btw).

― toby (tsg20), Friday, 23 June 2006 10:09 (nineteen years ago)

i don't like these rolling threads

― stevem identity thief (ken c), Friday, 23 June 2006 10:26 (nineteen years ago)

ah ok it just needed to be formatted. panic over!

― toby (tsg20), Friday, 23 June 2006 11:09 (nineteen years ago)

four months pass...

I think I am ready to take the external hd plunge and I like the idea of rolling my own. I am not as savvy as some on this thread so I am wondering if this is very difficult to assemble (sounds easy) and also if once I get the hard drive into the enclosure and plug it in to the firewire or usb port, my computer (windows xp) will just recognize it?

― mcd (mcd), Friday, 10 November 2006 19:23 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

is it worth doing this now that you can get the "Comstar Platinum 250GB 3.5" External Hard Drive" for $130 canadian?? or will that drive fail on me in 3 mos??

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 05:42 (nineteen years ago)

thoughts?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 19:44 (nineteen years ago)

unrelated but i am buying a lacie 1 TB RIGHT NOW

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:29 (nineteen years ago)

OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

well, CAN$130 isn't an especially great price for a 250GB ext HDD. you can roll your own ($85 for a 250GB HDD, $45 for the enclosure) and ensure you've chosen an enclosure that won't overheat and has a chipset that will work with your particular computer. you can also cherry-pick your HDD... get one that runs cool, has a longer warranty, etc.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:42 (nineteen years ago)

tell me more about chipsets!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:47 (nineteen years ago)

i bought a maxtor onetouch 1tb last week. it. is. awesome.

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:48 (nineteen years ago)

did you order yours online?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:51 (nineteen years ago)

is there a big difference b/w these two:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18409&vpn=ST3320620AS&manufacture=Seagate

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18410&vpn=ST3320620A&manufacture=Seagate

and will either fit comfortably in a vantec enclosure?

are there any cheap/good enclosures w/fw800 as an option?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:56 (nineteen years ago)

yup - buy.com canada

bundgee: everything i read said the lacies were LOUD

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

slocki just make sure you buy a sata-capable enclosure for those HDs

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

riiiight.

maybe i should just get this?

http://www.buy.com/prod/Seagate_300GB_16MB_cache_USB_2_0_External_Hard_Drive_ST3300601U2_RK/q/loc/16076/202172922.html

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

wow, an on/off button and everything

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:02 (nineteen years ago)

i know... FUTURE MUCH?

this look ok?

http://www.buy.com/prod/CoolMax_3_5_SATA_USB_FireWire_Aluminum_Hard_Drive_Enclosure/q/loc/273/201887154.html

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:03 (nineteen years ago)

that one looks a little... menacing.

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:06 (nineteen years ago)

that's the point dude. does double duty as a security device.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:07 (nineteen years ago)

seriously, i would just go for a brand name enclosure (like one of the more expensive byteccs) and pair it with a brand name hard drive

i mean, rolling your own hard drive is pretty much a crapshoot no matter what -- still better to use good parts though

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

ya it just gets to the point where i'm wondering if i shouldn't just buy a pre-rolled. i mean they have a 400gb seagate on that piece for $175. am i really gonna do better than this on my own??

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:13 (nineteen years ago)

probably not, no

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:15 (nineteen years ago)

i guess not with that attitude i won't.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:17 (nineteen years ago)

it depends on how particular you are about computer hardware, i suppose. buying pre-rolled won't necessarily be cheaper than rolling your own.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:23 (nineteen years ago)

no, i thought it was the other way around!

until i came across that very inexpensive 400gigger. 7200rpm, 16mb cache, BLUE ACTIVITY LIGHTS... any reason i should hesitate?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:28 (nineteen years ago)

looks like ymmv:

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-External-FireWire-Drive-Backup/dp/B0006FS1Z0

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:32 (nineteen years ago)

everything i read said the lacies were LOUD

yeah, I have two right now and they're not too quiet. doesn't really bother me much though. my computer is in my studio too, so that helps. but yeah, ONE TB. excited. gotta figure out how to get rid of my old hds.

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:35 (nineteen years ago)

one tb feels pretty luxurious

― m@p (plosive), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:38 (nineteen years ago)

i'm worried that i will fill it up really quickly.

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

hmm thanks dude no wonder it's priced so low

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 15 January 2007 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

I've always rolled my own and if you are patient you almost certainly will save money doing it.

that was a good strategy with 160s and even up to 250s, but I've noticed lately that rolling your own on the biggies (400+ giggers) generally only saves you a max of about $30 unless you are really, really persistent and are willing to rebate yourself silly in order to knock the price down.

the other part is that once you get to a mega drive like 500 to 1TB, you will sleep better at night knowing that much data is in the hands of a mated hard drive/enclosure.

― don weiner (don weiner), Monday, 15 January 2007 23:47 (nineteen years ago)

Seagate 400GB ST3400633AS-RK Serial ATA (SATA/300) Retail Hard Drive: US$119

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Saturday, 20 January 2007 06:05 (nineteen years ago)

Like I said over on the ILM thread, Seagate is going to be rolling out a 3.5" single 1TB drive (the current La Cie ones are dual drives?) this year, so I'm waiting until then before upgrading my external drive.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 20 January 2007 07:14 (nineteen years ago)

nine months pass...

any particularly good suggestions at the moment? i haven't looked for a while and have lost my sense of what is a reasonable size/price/etc.

I've always rolled my own and if you are patient you almost certainly will save money doing it.

the other part is that once you get to a mega drive like 500 to 1TB, you will sleep better at night knowing that much data is in the hands of a mated hard drive/enclosure.

are these larger drives any more likely to fail? it's not an analogous situation to those 120min cassette tapes that used to always snap, is it? or is it?

― toby, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 00:32 (eighteen years ago)

eg how about Seagate FreeAgent Desktop Drive 500GB for $120?

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/5161356#detailed

it looks like a few people on Amazon complain about a lack of cooling - is this the kind of thing where there are always going to be a few complaints, or something to be wary of?

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-Desktop-External-ST305004FDA1E1-RK/dp/B000ND75C0

― toby, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 01:55 (eighteen years ago)

these days it doesn't really seem worth it to be honest.

― s1ocki, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 01:58 (eighteen years ago)

lately bare 500GB drives have been going for right around $100 so if you need an enclosure you're probably not saving much. Most of the time, the low priced drives are going to be USB2, if that makes a difference.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

Also, I fully expect prices for stuff like this to go below $100 in November when holiday season really gets cranking.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 02:04 (eighteen years ago)

Ah, should I hang on a few weeks, then? Do prices tend to drop around Thanksgiving?!

― toby, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 12:37 (eighteen years ago)

I'd look at getting a two disk enclosure and running RAID-1 if you really care about data security. Prices are so low these days it seems daft not to.

― Ed, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 12:39 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.