USB enclosure with SATA HDD question

[videohalp]

My old motherboard does not support SATA. If I were to hook up a USB enclosure with SATA HDD, will the computer recognize it?

[johns0]

Yes,just plug it in your usb.

[pandy]

It should but USB is far from being good for HDD, if You intend to use this drive on regular base switch to eSATA or at least FireWire (there is plenty cards on market that will ad this functionality to computer for low price)

[p_l]

After switching over from years of being set up with FireWire external HDDs, just when I'm all set up with eSATA and happy with it, the industry appears to be abandoning it now. Look at newegg or wherever, and you're lucky if you can find a handful of eSATA external HDDs left, but there are literally over a hundred USB 3.0 models. *Sigh* Now you need a USB 3.0 card. (USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0, but you won't get the same speeds.)

Luckily in your case, if you're just looking for the enclosure for an HDD you already have, there are still quite a few eSATA models available: http://www.newegg.ca/External-Enclosures/SubCategory/ID-92

[johns0]

The op cant use esata since his system doesn't have sata unless he buys an esata card for pci.

[p_l]

Yes, so either go with a USB enclosure, as you suggest, plugged directly into what we must assume is just a USB 2.0 port and live with the slow speeds, or get an eSATA, FireWire or, as the choice is now, a USB 3.0 card for an enclosure with the corresponding interface for decent speeds. I guess it depends on what kind of transfer speeds he can live with.

What he could do is get a USB 3.0 enclosure, which should work with a plain old USB 2.0 port anyway, and see if he's satisfied with the speed. If not, he can get a USB 3.0 card. That's what I did.

[fritzi93]

If the OP's mobo is so old it doesn't have SATA, it's likely it doesn't have a PCIe x1 slot either. I guess those USB 3.0 cards come in plain PCI flavor?

I see the point about eSATA though.

My mobo has USB 2.0 (it's why I got it cheap, and it's otherwise adequate). Likewise my two powered external enclosures are USB 2.0, for use playing videos on my TV; the transfer rate doesn't matter there, it's enough.

For writing big video files on the externals...yeah, pain in the ass. Which is where the eSATA port on the front of my case comes in handy. My cheap USB 2.0 enclosures also have an eSATA port.

[Seeker47]

When I went to Fry's, with such an item being on my list, they had a few PCI-E USB-3 cards, but zero just-PCI ones. In another VH thread where this subject came up. someone suggested this one

http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2u3pci.php

but questioned what sort of actual speeds one would see with the PCI bus of older MBs. (Probably still a lot better than USB-2, though . . . . ) As I have a computer or two that only have a spare PCI slot left, I'm inclined to check this out. But, a lot of times when I actually try to purchase items like this, it turns out that the web page was old and outdated, the item no longer available. Then it becomes eBay time.

Let me just add that on the whole enclosure thing, some of them are good, many of them are NOT. I've tried a number of brands and models, several of which are no longer on the market. I took a good look at the 9 or so pages of enclosures currently being sold by NewEgg, and was rather unimpressed. Some of those brands I'm pretty sure are junk, others have plenty of dicey buyer reviews. OTOH, I know from experience that my two Antec Veris MX-1 enclosures (dual e-SATA / USB-2) have been quite good, so I may buy another soon as they seem to be 'Going, Going, almost Gone.' It's not worth cutting corners to save a couple bucks on something like this -- especially not if it could affect the longevity or survival of the HDD inside. I don't think I would even consider buying one that did not incorporate a good, effective fan. The Antec Veris meets that qualification, and is very quiet as well, something that is apparently not so common.

[p_l]

Her's a PCI one from the egg people: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201041



Here are some of the owners' comments on speed:

Added Near-full speed USB 3.0 to an older machine (no available PCIe.) Sisoft Sandra says the external HD I attached (2GB GoFlex Desk) is a little faster than my internal 7.2K sata drives. Copying 60 GB from HD to external HD makes me believe this.

Even though this won't get you the maximum USB 3.0 speeds, it is still much much faster than USB 2.0, so don't be discouraged.

Works as Advertised. Superfast. 79MBs with Buffalo 2TB External. Now my backup drive can also be a Photoshop and Video Editing Scratch disk.

USB 2.0 Devices work great. Class 4 SD Cards get 5% increase, external powered Lacie Big Disk got a whopping 14% increase.

Using this PCI card, I get 79MBs with an external HD, for reference, my eSata gets 100MBs. Not bad at all.

[fritzi93]

I know from experience that my two Antec Veris MX-1 enclosures (dual e-SATA / USB-2) have been quite good, so I may buy another soon as they seem to be 'Going, Going, almost Gone.' It's not worth cutting corners to save a couple bucks on something like this -- especially not if it could affect the longevity or survival of the HDD inside.

Now that's interesting. I may just go with your recommendation and pick up a couple.

You know, with reviews you have to try to assess just how competent the reviewer is, and it can be very difficult. Sometimes they reveal themselves to be fools, sometimes not, and I suspect many times they were just unlucky. Stuff breaks, defective goods sometimes slip by and get shipped. Many times I've bought items that got scads of horrible reviews and I had no problems whatsoever. And all this apart from the observed fact that folks who *do* have problems are more motivated to write reviews. Bad ones.

I've had hard drive enclosures fail, and it never seemed to affect the hard drive. Nevertheless, I always copied over the files, formatted and ran tests first before using it again. And never fully trusted it thereafter, but so far I've been wrong.

I'd be interested in knowing: Those of you who have had an enclosure fail, did it bugger the hard drive as well? Did it have a fan?

[Noahtuck]

My old motherboard does not support SATA.

Has absolutely NOTHING to do with USB.

If I were to hook up a USB enclosure with SATA HDD, will the computer recognize it?

That has to be one of the all time silliest (me being waaaay nice) questions I have ever read!!!

If you could not, and it would not work with such an interface, why would they make an external hard drive case that took a SATA drive but had a USB cable/connection ?!?!?

[Seeker47]

Her's a PCI one from the egg people: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201041

I'll have to go back to be sure, but you know, I thought that one looks identical to the Addonics one that I mentioned . . . . Priced almost the same, as well.

[Seeker47]

You know, with reviews you have to try to assess just how competent the reviewer is, and it can be very difficult. Sometimes they reveal themselves to be fools, sometimes not, and I suspect many times they were just unlucky. Stuff breaks, defective goods sometimes slip by and get shipped. Many times I've bought items that got scads of horrible reviews and I had no problems whatsoever. And all this apart from the observed fact that folks who *do* have problems are more motivated to write reviews. Bad ones.

All very true.

I've had hard drive enclosures fail, and it never seemed to affect the hard drive. Nevertheless, I always copied over the files, formatted and ran tests first before using it again. And never fully trusted it thereafter, but so far I've been wrong.

I'd be interested in knowing: Those of you who have had an enclosure fail, did it bugger the hard drive as well? Did it have a fan?

I have no answer for the latter question (though some of those NewEgg reviews claimed it was a 'Yes'), but I'd prefer not to find out, if they're right.

[I still have a few never-used IDE drives that I'd like to devote to backup or redundant storage. Unfortunately, the enclosure models I had preferred for those are long off the market at this point.]

[hello_hello]

I still have a few never-used IDE drives that I'd like to devote to backup or redundant storage. Unfortunately, the enclosure models I had preferred for those are long off the market at this point.

What was it about the enclosures you preferred which made you prefer them?

If nothing else, there's still a bucket load of IDE hard drive enclosures for sale on eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=usb+ide+hard+drive+enclos...at=0&_from=R40
Or you could just use an IDE to USB adaptor instead and not worry about an enclosure.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=usb+ide+hard+drive+adaptor&_sacat=0&_odkw=usb+ide+...at=0&_from=R40

I've owned a couple of different USB enclosures into which I've installed an existing hard drive and I still have one of those adaptors for emergencies. It's pretty hard to go wrong. They tend to just work.
You may have to check they support large hard drives, although up to 1TB for IDE should be pretty standard.

I'm not sure I'd be too fussed about an enclosure having a fan, or it causing the drive to run too hot. Hard drives do run warm, some more than others, but you'd probably have to put a hard drive in an unventilated enclosure which causes it to run a fair bit warmer, be using it in a region where it's generally hot, and run it for hours on end for heat to even have a chance of being an issue. Hard drive longevity can be real crap shoot and short of dropping one, your hard drive's probably going to last as long as it'll last no matter what you do.

A few years ago Google released a study on hard drive longevity. They couldn't find any correlation between hard drive operating temperatures and failure rates. http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-experience/