Hard Drive Enclosures

[Lance]

I'm looking for an external hard drive enclosure, and I just cannot find anything I like! Although having multiple bays would be nice, I decided to not look for one of those because the prices get really large. In addition to that there's so many reviews of these devices that say the enclosures were DOA, they failed for no good reason, or were bad for other reasons like terrible cooling.

So the first thing that jumped into my head was, "what would it take to build one of these"? Well I imagine that the structure and the cooling fan would be pretty straight forward, so the SATA to eSATAp and/or USB would be the challenging bit. Something like that seems a bit beyond me for the time being. I'm curious, what exactly is involved with designing such an interface?

[sacherjj]

eSata is simply getting the serial link out to the drive and not exceeding the length requirements of the cable specs.  Then powering the drive.  You can use the computer power if you have a plug free and output both signal and power on one expansion slot.  For USB you need electronics for talking with the drive and with USB interface.  Depending on the drive you may be able to power from USB.  Normally only laptop sized drives.

I personally just use SATA to USB pluggable drive adapter.  It allows you to put full size and laptop sized drive in with the connection down.  Works great for transferring info, but not so well for running full time. 

[Lance]

The port on my machine is actually an eSATAp. I want to power a full size hard drive. I was hoping for more detail in the actual hardware involved in making a SATA device communicate.

[Joshua]

My computer has a SATA port that I can directly connect a hard drive to. I would also look at an enclosure by the company Rocketfish. I think I paid about $50 usd for mine. You can get it for different types and sizes of drives.

Joshua

[sacherjj]

The port on my machine is actually an eSATAp. I want to power a full size hard drive. I was hoping for more detail in the actual hardware involved in making a SATA device communicate.

There is no hardware required for eSATA to SATA.  The connectors are mechanically different, but electrically the same.  What I think is stupid is that eSATA didn't provide and option for external power.  Most eSATA enclosures will provide power and you just provide the SATA connection.

The only times you will need electronics for connecting a drive is SATA to USB.

[Lance]

The port on my machine is actually an eSATAp. I want to power a full size hard drive. I was hoping for more detail in the actual hardware involved in making a SATA device communicate.

There is no hardware required for eSATA to SATA.  The connectors are mechanically different, but electrically the same.  What I think is stupid is that eSATA didn't provide and option for external power.  Most eSATA enclosures will provide power and you just provide the SATA connection.

The only times you will need electronics for connecting a drive is SATA to USB.

Yeah, I guess making the SATA to USB is more trouble than it's worth. Thanks for the input everyone.

[Lawsen]

USB and SATA are common, but Firewire IEEE 1394 is another way.  Often it is cheaper to buy it with the harddriver and enclosure electronics already assembled.  I assume, you can find a store on line to buy the enclosure and electronics.  You will need to buy the cable to connect it to your PC.  Most PC would need a Firewire PCI slot card, too, as Firewire is not standard on most PC. 

Lawsen

[Lance]

USB and SATA are common, but Firewire IEEE 1394 is another way.  Often it is cheaper to buy it with the harddriver and enclosure electronics already assembled.  I assume, you can find a store on line to buy the enclosure and electronics.  You will need to buy the cable to connect it to your PC.  Most PC would need a Firewire PCI slot card, too, as Firewire is not standard on most PC. 

Lawsen

Yup. I'm going for the eSATA because I don't have a firewire port.