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External Enclosure for a Hard Drive

M

Mehta23

Android Expert
I recently bought a 2TB internal hard drive for use as a backup drive. I was told that keeping this in my PC case may not be such a good idea in certain circumstances, so I'm looking at ways to safely store it outside.

Option1: A simple box: I'd then have to take it out of the box and then put it in the computer, or use a hard drive tray thimgamabob

Alternatives are this box and this tray with space for an SSD

Option 2: Use an enclosure: Saves me from having to manually plug in the hard drive, and should also keep it pretty safe. Only thing is it's USB3, and not as fast as SATA?

Thoughts?
 
Because the drive is intended for backups, I'd go with an enclosure. It would be safer and you could just plug it in at your designated backup time, backup, and unplug and store it somewhere safe
 
palmtree5 said:
Because the drive is intended for backups, I'd go with an enclosure. It would be safer and you could just plug it in at your designated backup time, backup, and unplug and store it somewhere safe
Click to expand...

But couldn't I do that without the enclosure? I suppose it will be easier - not having to go into my computer... But any better than the hard drive tray idea?
 
The HDD caddy (tray option) could be useful, however when I used them back in the day of PATA EIDE drives they definitely were not "hot swappable" (swap drives with a powered and booted pc) the drives could be swapped out, but a reboot was needed to 'detect' the change via BIOS.

If this is still the same with SATA or not I couldn't tell you tbh.

I'd go with an enclosure simply because if you had a more 'permanent' connection from the drive to the pc, and suffered a bad power surge or other incident, your backup drive is still at risk, thus pretty much defeating the whole point of having a backup.

For the minimal effort of plugging in an enclosure, doing your backup, and unplugging the enclosure, each time, you'll be a lot safer, plus your backup is much more portable and compatible where ever you need to take it.
 
There isn't much between USB3 & SATA3 in terms of speed, but thats assuming you have access to those technologies. If you have SATA2 and USB3, obviously USB3 should ultimately be faster, and visa versa for SATA3 V's USB2, then SATA3 will be the faster bus.
 
It's out of USB 3 and SATAIII. But talking about the safety of USB 3 means I'll probably look for one of them :P
 
I looked at both and my concern would be cooling. (calling the case "icybox" doesn't drop the operating temperature.) Neither of these enclosures have fans and the screwless model only has minimal ventilation holes.

If you intend on leaving the hard drive on all the time, then you will need some cooling.
 
It would be just for backups, so I wouldn't have it connected all of the time....

Would a better idea be to get one of those 5.25" bay adapters, and plug the hard drive directly into my PC when I need it ? I'd also need a USB adapter for the laptop too....
 
Mehta23 said:
It would be just for backups, so I wouldn't have it connected all of the time....

Would a better idea be to get one of those 5.25" bay adapters, and plug the hard drive directly into my PC when I need it ? I'd also need a USB adapter for the laptop too....
Click to expand...

Since you already have the drive and are only going to be using for backups, I suppose the Icy Box 318 would be okay. Just realize that power cycling hard disks stresses them and can shorten their life. It probably will be fine.

Going forward, You might want to look in to a NAS appliance. There are several decent ones out there for the home market (I have one from Iomega in my house). It provides 1TB of storage in a RAID1 array so there is some redundancy there as well. And it's on all the time in a temperature stable environment (my basement) so backups happen without much thought once you are setup.
 
Yeah, I've heard about NAS boxes... but they're just too expensive for me at the moment.

What exactly is power cycling? How badly can it affect hard drives?
 
Mehta23 said:
Yeah, I've heard about NAS boxes... but they're just too expensive for me at the moment.

What exactly is power cycling? How badly can it affect hard drives?
Click to expand...

Power cycling is simply turning the drive off and back on again. When a drive is powered down, the platters will spin down and the read/write heads will park. Turning a drive on does the reverse. These are all mechanical parts so the additional stress on them can shorten their life.

If we are talking about a disk that will be used a few times a week for backups, then it probably wouldn't make a difference. If we are talking about a disk that will be used multiple times per day, it would be best, IMO to just leave it on.
 
Anyone :P

options now are :

1. a usb 3 enclosure like the one in the post above (with a fan this time :P) for both PC and laptop
2. or a simple adapter like this Anker
 
Go for the enclosure, the adapter is useful to have in some situations, but for anything vaguely longer term than a session I'd recommend the enclosure.
 
Alright, thanks guys. If I were to get just the adapter I would've also gotten a case for the drive....

Would the enclosure with the built in fan be my best choice then?
 
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the one with a fan. Hard drive temps rarely go high enough to justify the cooling versus the induction of dirty/dusty air. If your drive was of higher RPM, say 7200 or 10k then it may be worth it.

Just imo.
 
I think it is 7200rpm...?

The reason I was asking about a case + adapter was then I wouldn't need an external power supply just two usb ports...
 
Mehta23 said:
I think it is 7200rpm...?

The reason I was asking about a case + adapter was then I wouldn't need an external power supply just two usb ports...
Click to expand...

It totally depends on your setup and requirements. I have a few enclosures of different types, the most convenient for me are 2.5" fanless as they run off of just one USB port.

If the enclosure you will be using needs to be portable, then I'd recommend one that does not need a power adapter, however if it's going to sit on a desk and not move a lot, then you might as well get one that needs an adapter and free up a USB slot.
 
I'm thinking there would probably be more situations where needed 2 usb ports would be less of a hassle than having to use a socket. But then most of its use would just be at home - where I should be able to find a spare socket :-P
Would a storage case provide better/worse protection than an enclosure?

Edit: just wondering how it is that other 3.5" external hard drives manage to run off a single usb port?
 
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