Advice Please on the HDD Enclosure

trendy · 09 Jun 2014

Hi,Slartybart.
Regarding your reply looks very interesting as to the docking station,Yes I do have a docking station it is just a single one.I did have many thoughts on this but reading through some of the forums one was said that it was a bad idea to have a dock as the inserting the hdd in and out of the dock would lead to damage to the hdd,I'm no technical guy so I'm really glad of the support from forums like this one it has helped me out a great deal.
So lets look at the dock situation,What would you say to that statement that I seen on another forum.

bad idea to have a dock as the inserting the hdd in and out of the dock would lead to damage to the hdd

The dock that I have is here....2.5/3.5 Inch SATA USB Dock with Hub & CardReader | Maplin

Once again I'm very much glad of the help from here.
Thank You.
David.

alphanumeric · 09 Jun 2014

USB 3 supports higher speeds but that doesn't mean you'll actually get them. A mechanical drive even SATA, won't come close to maxing out USB 2 speeds so USB 3 isn't going to get you much of a performance benefit. Not unless you plan on putting an SSD in the enclosure.

I have a couple of small external enclosures that have 2.5 inch (laptop) IDE drives in them. They don't have a dedicated power pack. The cables that come with them have two USB plugs that plug into the PC. One is power and data and the other power only. They are handy if you need portable storage. I also have a single drive enclosure for a 3.5 inch drive that has a dedicated power pack. I use it for backups and only turn it on when needed. It doesn't get moved around much. It also has a small cooling fan in it. If you not going to move the enclosure around much I'd go for the one you linked to. I have one other USB 3.0 external enclosure with a 2.5 inch SATA spinner drive in it. The USB 3.0 doesn't get me any faster performance with that drive but USB 3 can supply more power so it only has the one USB plug on the cable. No power pack either, but its not needed.

Slartybart · 09 Jun 2014

alphanumeric makes some valid points regarding USB 3.0, throughput and power.
Thanks alpha!

If you handle the drive with care (edges, never the face), a docking station is fine.

Choose an enclosure if you plan on taking the drive anywhere or only have the two.

You can use your existing docking station to add a drive on the fly.

I would select one with an external power supply since there are two 3.5" drives regardless of USB version. This effects portability a little because you would carry the power block and the drive. It's a decision point: portability versus power.

You have lots of good information, but that's really all I have.

alphanumeric · 09 Jun 2014

My USB 3 enclosure travels with my laptop so it's nice to only need the single cable and not need to have a power pack. The drive that's in it is actually the factory drive that came in my laptop. It was replaced with an SSD. They all have advantages depending on how your going to use them. Like Smartybart says, for 2 3.5 inch drive I'd want an enclosure that comes with a power pack.

EDIT: another option is network connected storage. You can get them with a network jack that you plug into your router. Then any PC on your network can have access. Otherwise you have to leave the PC its plugged into powered on to share files on the external enclosure.