Laptop Hard Drive Enclosure

[waheed]

Ive searched the Internet without success to find a Laptop Hard Drive Enclosure to use a 2.5" hard drive externally. The main purpose of doing this is because my company has supplied us with laptops but prohibited us from installing any of our own software. They are still using older versions like Office 97 etc...

I prefer to use a external hard drive so I can install my own own software to it. I'm even going to installed a OS to it so I can boot from the external hard drive and customise it to the way I like it.

Portability is a main factor as my job requires alot of travelling.

Well, to the point, there are two main features Im looking for in a enclosure:

1. It must have eSATA connectivity (I plan to use a PCMCIA SATA Card for the laptop)

2. I would prefer it to have a built in power supply

And it must be available in the UK as thats where I am based. Most of the enclosures are USB 2.0 but its rare to find one thats supports eSATA.

Any pointers from anyone?

Thanks for your help.

[oldandinthe way]

Your requirements are more than 2 standard deviation from the mean. Hence your inability to meet your needs.

The most common approach with 2.5" drives is to use USB or firewire to an IDE drive in a box which receives its power from the interface - no power supply.

Next most common is the above with an external power supply.

Third most common is USB or firewire to SATA drive in an unpowered box.

Since 2.5" drives are slower than most 3.5" drives they are used where power or space is an issue. Since you are willing to have a power supply, you have compromised both as well as speed.

Either consider a 3.5" drive and enclosure or choose a more normal route for 2.5" support.

My last USB/SATA external 2.5" box cost me under $8.00 (including shipping) in the USA from meritline.com

[redwudz]

It looks like Akasa has those type of drive enclosures. http://www.akasa-europe.com/ I see they sell through Maplin and other UK companies. They have a socket for a external 5VDC power supply.



EDIT: That link doesn't go directly to their external 2.5" enclosures. You have to dig a little. It's under 'P2' and the series is 'AK-ENP2NES-BL' or SL or BK for the suffix. Those are the same, just differing in colour. About 17 UK (Pounds) I don't have that key.

[holistic]

..........
Any pointers from anyone?.............

yeah don't bother. Is a PCMCIA BUS speed even worth using eSATA?!?!

I've got two Vantec Nexstar 2.5" enclosures. 1 is eSATA running a 160Gb drive the other is IDE running a 120Gb drive. I find the eSATA very annoying due to the power draw. Typically it takes two USB ports to spin the drive up. (with the odd occasion it is not detected till i remove / reinsert plug) The IDE unit is happy with one USB port.

Have you considered a 8Gb (or better) USB stick and booting to that??

What software did you plan on using?? Have you considered --> http://portableapps.com/


edit ::: ignore that crap about usb as it may not effect running of a PCMCIA card.

[waheed]

Thanks for the response.

I was unaware PCMCIA would be a bottleneck in transferring data. According to a website, its maxed at 160Mbps. Not worthwhile for SATA, so I may stick to using USB 2.0.

I plan of cloning the internal hard drive of the laptop using acronis true image and then customise and install my own software on the extrenal drive. I already have a 3.5" SATA Hard drive in a external enclosure so may stick to using that.