HDD caddies/enclosures..

[Admiral Huddy]

Am I right that I can quickly pop either an IDE HDD or a SATA into this caddy?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=616032

I didn't think they were available.

[leowyatt]

seems like it would if you ask me :)

[LeperousDust]

Theres an even better one i'm in too much of a rush to find atm Huddy, i'm off out, when i get back later if you haven't bought it i'll show you. I think it takes 2.5 3.25 IDE and SATA all in one and they literally just plug in, no undoing things and the hard drive just sticks out the top with the connecters covered. perfect for just pulling data, or fixing one hard drive after another...

[Admiral Huddy]

That would be cool :)

[Desmo]

I wouldn't mind a hot swap enclosure for work. I do a daily backup and the external unit is a touch large. It plugs in via firewire and needs separate power. Would be handy to just pop it in, back up, and pop it out again.

[LeperousDust]

Ooooh sorry its only SATA huddy, but its still cool:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x38we6_sata-hdd-stage-rack
I dont know where else you can buy it apart from here:
http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=630
and it doesn't come cheap imported. I would like it though would make my old hard drive mess much more bareable!

[Admiral Huddy]

Cheers.. I'll go for the Akasa.. seems a good price.

[AboveTheSalt]

It would be really interesting if you were to post some data transfer speeds for the HDD
a) in the caddy
b) directly connected

Some years ago, I used to use (cold) pluggable PATA drives for backup purposes - the transfer rate was awful - I never worked out why, just gave up using them.

[Mark]

What's a (cold) pluggable PATA drive? :confused:

Most of the PATA/SATA-to-USB caddies use cheap chipsets that don't sustain bandwidth well, and even without the cheap chips USB isn't ideal to start with.

Firewire support is somewhat hit-and-miss. For example, on Windows, Firewire400 should work significantly better than USB, but there's no benefit to getting Firewire800 as you either have to use MS's drivers, which don't support FW800, or 3rd party drivers which tend to be broken.

eSATA is undoubtedly the king when it comes to these caddies as it's pretty much a straight through connection to the onboard SATA hardware.

[AboveTheSalt]

What's a (cold) pluggable PATA drive? :confused:One where you have to power down to unplug - as opposed to "hot pluggable".

My mistake, I should have mentioned that these drives were held in low-cost pluggable caddies that could be removed without the need to open up the case - a bit like this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hard-Drive-Caddy-Cost-Black/dp/B000I2JU6A) but for PATA drives :)

[A Place of Light]

Theres an even better one i'm in too much of a rush to find atm Huddy, i'm off out, when i get back later if you haven't bought it i'll show you. I think it takes 2.5 3.25 IDE and SATA all in one and they literally just plug in, no undoing things and the hard drive just sticks out the top with the connecters covered. perfect for just pulling data, or fixing one hard drive after another...

3.25 IDE?
I thought IDE's came in 2.5 (laptop) and 3.5 (desktop) flavours?

[Mark]

My mistake, I should have mentioned that these drives were held in low-cost pluggable caddies that could be removed without the need to open up the case - a bit like this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hard-Drive-Caddy-Cost-Black/dp/B000I2JU6A) but for PATA drives :)
I know those. Wouldn't have expected those to be any slower than a directly-connected PATA drive (unless the connectors are so poor that they degrade the data signal).

[AboveTheSalt]

I know those. Wouldn't have expected those to be any slower than a directly-connected PATA drive (unless the connectors are so poor that they degrade the data signal).I didn't expect that result either - my first thought was that the internal cable (from the drive to the caddy socket) was 40-wire rather than 80-wire; it appeared to be fine. However, this issue is a bit of a red herring to be honest and I apologise for raising it.

What I was really interesting in was knowing how the speed of any enclosure that Admiral Huddy does eventually buy compares with the same drive connected directly.

For my part and in atonement for my unintended attempt at derailing the thread, I will try and get together and post some figures for my external 300GB drive using USB 2.0, FW400 & eSATA :)

[kaiowas]

eSATA is undoubtedly the king when it comes to these caddies as it's pretty much a straight through connection to the onboard SATA hardware.

Indeed. It's just a shame that:

a) The eSATA standard didn't include any provision for integrated power supply meaning you still have to use external power bricks.

b) It's really not being pushed as much as it should.