2.5" USB HDD Enclosures
A few days ago I installed an older 64GB SSD into my mom's laptop so it'd stop stalling and lagging, leaving me with a 500GB 2.5" HDD at my disposal. Originally I was just going to throw it into my desktop then it occurred to me if I could find a decent enclosure, I would have a nice portable storage drive to accompany my laptop which only has a 128GB SSD. I'm running into a couple issues though.
Most 2.5" drive enclosures are bus-powered, and often rely on a Y-cable which violates USB spec, plus I only have two ports on my laptop, one per side. The drive (Hitachi 5K500 500GB SATA2 5400RPM) is labelled as having a maximum draw of 700mA at 5V. USB2 specifies 500mA maximum but USB3 allows up to 900mA. The easiest solution obviously would be to get an enclosure with an external AC adapter, but that completely eliminates the portability aspect as far as sitting somewhere on battery and plugging in the drive.
I was briefly discussing this in #winboards a little while ago, just looking for some more input. Is it possible for me to find a decent enclosure that doesn't require external power but will run that drive? Even though it violates USB spec, I don't mind relying on a Y-cable if I only need it when I'm using the drive on a USB 2.0 port since my laptop has USB 3. But I definitely don't want to fry any USB controllers or ports; the drive, meh.
I've been looking around eBay, Newegg, etc. and provided power requirements aren't going to be overly problematic, I need to find a half-decent, relatively cheap 2.5" drive enclosure. I've found a lot of the reviews are so scattered, some praising and others cursing the same model. Anybody have some first-hand recommendations?
For the record, I already have a 64GB USB3 flash drive for moving 'small' stuff between computers; the reason I'm looking to do this is so I can have something to tote around my entire Steam library plus some movies without having to completely fill my SSD or buy a WD MyPassport drive.
Most 2.5" drive enclosures are bus-powered, and often rely on a Y-cable which violates USB spec, plus I only have two ports on my laptop, one per side. The drive (Hitachi 5K500 500GB SATA2 5400RPM) is labelled as having a maximum draw of 700mA at 5V. USB2 specifies 500mA maximum but USB3 allows up to 900mA. The easiest solution obviously would be to get an enclosure with an external AC adapter, but that completely eliminates the portability aspect as far as sitting somewhere on battery and plugging in the drive.
I was briefly discussing this in #winboards a little while ago, just looking for some more input. Is it possible for me to find a decent enclosure that doesn't require external power but will run that drive? Even though it violates USB spec, I don't mind relying on a Y-cable if I only need it when I'm using the drive on a USB 2.0 port since my laptop has USB 3. But I definitely don't want to fry any USB controllers or ports; the drive, meh.
I've been looking around eBay, Newegg, etc. and provided power requirements aren't going to be overly problematic, I need to find a half-decent, relatively cheap 2.5" drive enclosure. I've found a lot of the reviews are so scattered, some praising and others cursing the same model. Anybody have some first-hand recommendations?
For the record, I already have a 64GB USB3 flash drive for moving 'small' stuff between computers; the reason I'm looking to do this is so I can have something to tote around my entire Steam library plus some movies without having to completely fill my SSD or buy a WD MyPassport drive.
Comments
I've not had any issues using drives with Y cables though, and most of the drives I've used with just one cable work fine depending on the power provided to the port. I've had good luck with using them on my laptop, but the front ports on my desktop don't seem to cut it, so I usually have to use the second USB cable.
Personally, I like enclosures that have both USB and eSATA ports. On systems that support it, eSATA can be infinitely faster. But eSATA does not provide power.
One thing to watch out for: some cheap enclosures with a +5 volt adapter port may send power back up your USB connector in to your computer. This can damage your computer. Similarly, you should not plug the second plug on a USB "Y" cable in to a seperate device or USB power source - only a second port on the same computer. Very annoying when there is only one port available.
As for USB3 vs eSATA, I've read that USB3 is faster, while others say eSATA is faster.
eSATA is faster.
A USB3 hard drive enclosure uses a SATA to USB controller whereas an eSATA enclosure is straight through SATA, no conversion. So in either case, you're limited to SATA speeds, which will be bottle necked by the speed of the drive (with the exception of some newer SSDs).
USB3 is 5 Gbps while SATA3 is 6 Gbps, so technically SATA is faster. But even if you used something like thunderbolt with 10/20 Gbps, you'd still be limited by the 6 Gbps of SATA3 and in any case, mechanical drives aren't fast enough to reach that speed limit anyway, so it's pretty much irrelevant.
The only point when it starts to mean something is if you have multiple drives in a RAID or you're using SSDs.
Pros: Price, uses standard microUSB3 to USB3 cable, easy installation, simple two-part design, includes protective sleeve. Runs off a single USB 2.0 port even with a conventional hard drive installed. Power/activity indicator is easy to see but not an eye-blinding blue LED.
Cons: No form of shock or drop protection of any kind, the controller/port assembly doesn't scream quality.
Comments:
I really didn't expect much when I bought this, I just wanted something affordable that would work. This seems to do the trick. Like I mentioned in the pros/cons, this isn't a top-quality enclosure, not that you should expect that from something for $12.99. It's pretty much just an aluminum case with a SATA to USB3 bridge screwed to the back. It went together without any difficulty and I haven't had any issues running my 500GB drive in it. Performance is pretty good too, it maxes out USB2 easily, and USB3 performance is pretty close to the tests ran when the drive was installed in the laptop.
USB 2 vs USB 3 performance: