Build your own External Hard Drive

[DocBrown]

But Marty McFly said " Hey Doc, all the good electronic stuff is made in the Orient "


That's where most HDs are manufactured nowadays :huh:


Link for Strollin :ar: Twin 3.5"/2.5" IDE/SATA HDD dock/Docking station-SD+HUB - eBay (item 290496585143 end time Jun-03-11 02:29:26 PDT)

rb:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Twin-3-5-2-5-ID...C_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item43a2f21db7

 

[essenbe]

This a treat thread. It should be made into a tutorial. It just shows that there are a lot of different types of external Hard drives as well as many uses for them. Doc deserves a big thank you for going to the trouble of providing a lot of useful information. Thanks Doc. Doc also deserves a rep for this thread, but the system won't let me do it. So, here's your public rep Doc.

 

[James Colbert]

But Marty McFly said " Hey Doc, all the good electronic stuff is made in the Orient "

And can you tell us where this Marty Mcfly guy got his training...?

 

[DocBrown]

Doc, gotta link to that all-in-one?

Is this the same one? NEON all-in-one Dual HDD dock

That one at Amazon looks exactly the same. About the same price depending on Amazon's shipping charges. :huh:

 

[linnemeyerhere]

For those of you who have esata connections or can live with a USB 2.0 just scored my second one of these. Yes they come with 2 1TB Green drives but I can tell you I've had zero issues with the first. Cool feature is you can pop out the 1TB Green and replace with any wd drive. So I will bid my time and then up grade to 2-3 TB drives as needed for the future. When you do the math it's almost like you're getting the case for free........sometimes I hate my logic ! Oh I got mine via Amazon and got free shipping as well.
JR.com: Western Digital WDH2Q20000N My Book Studio II 2TB External Dual-Drive in Hard Drives
This is whats loaded:
http://biz.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5659779&CatId=139
Then wait for these to fall in price and short sell my greens:
http://biz.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5239129&CatId=139

 

[pparks1]

For those of you who have esata connections or can live with a USB 2.0 just scored my second one of these. Yes they come with 2 1TB Green drives but I can tell you I've had zero issues with the first. Cool feature is you can pop out the 1TB Green and replace with any wd drive. So I will bid my time and then up grade to 2-3 TB drives as needed for the future. When you do the math it's almost like you're getting the case for free........sometimes I hate my logic ! Oh I got mine via Amazon and got free shipping as well.
JR.com: Western Digital WDH2Q20000N My Book Studio II 2TB External Dual-Drive in Hard Drives

My only real concern is the RAID 0 configuration on this device. But the price is hard to beat. As you said, it's like getting the enclosure for free, since the 1TB Caviar Greens are $58 each at NewEgg, so $116 for the drives and a you will find it hard to get a 2 drive enclosure of any quality for $23.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

FYI, it's easily configured to Raid 1 as well !

 

[standardsanders]

I've been looking at getting one of these docks, are they decent for an always on external drive or would I be better off getting a proper enclosure?

sorry if I necro'd this

 

[DocBrown]

Welcome standardsanders

I have 3 different brands of the Docks. All seem to function fine as I leave most of my computers turned ON all the time.

 

[standardsanders]

ah very nice, now to decide on one. been limited to a 120 gig drive on my old motherboard as it only has IDE.

 

[DocBrown]

I have also tested some IDE to Sata converter boards, that I attached to the IDE MB connection. Then connected a 500gb Sata HD to it. Seemed to work just fine for my purposes.

 

[essenbe]

I'll let you know. Newegg is supposed to be delivering a Black X tomorrow.

 

[James Colbert]

I have a Black X. It works great. No difference between internal and an HD in the dock.

 

[essenbe]

Good to hear that. you know, you read the feedback on some of these sites and it makes you worry that it will work. I have 2 external enclosures but they area pain to swap drives, I've always thought that a dock would be great, so I finally took the plunge.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Anyone looking for a good cheap 1 TB 7200 rpm drive to put in such an enclosure should look at Newegg quickly.

$49.99 for a Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache hard drive through tomorrow June 20.

Normally 64.99.

Discounted to 59.99, plus another 10.00 off through coupon code EMCKDJF27 that expires tomorrow.

Free shipping. No taxes to most US states.

I just ordered one as a primary internal data drive to accompany an Intel SSD OS drive I recently bought.

The Samsungs have a good record and in my experience run pretty quiet and at very low temp.

The other favorite, the WD 1 TB Caviar Black, is $85 today at Newegg, so you get quite a large saving by going with Samsung.

 

[DocBrown]

Yes, I have been impressed with the several Samsungs that I have purchased from NewEgg

 

[essenbe]

Anyone looking for a good cheap 1 TB 7200 rpm drive to put in such an enclosure should look at Newegg quickly.

$49.99 for a Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache hard drive through tomorrow June 20.

Normally 64.99.

Discounted to 59.99, plus another 10.00 off through coupon code EMCKDJF27 that expires tomorrow.

Free shipping. No taxes to most US states.

I just ordered one as a primary internal data drive to accompany an Intel SSD OS drive I recently bought.

The Samsungs have a good record and in my experience run pretty quiet and at very low temp.

The other favorite, the WD 1 TB Caviar Black, is $85 today at Newegg, so you get quite a large saving by going with Samsung.

They are delivering 2 Samsungs along with the Black X tomorrow. I didn't really need them right now, but couldn't pass up that price. That will make 4 103sj's for me. I just can't pass up on hard drives-my fettish I guess.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Does anyone know for sure if these 1 TB Samsung 103 SJ drives have just 2 platters? (500 GB each)

I'm guessing that is so, but I can't find any confirmation. Two platters should help reduce noise a bit.

 

[essenbe]

Does anyone know for sure if these 1 TB Samsung 103 SJ drives have just 2 platters? (500 GB each)

I'm guessing that is so, but I can't find any confirmation. Two platters should help reduce noise a bit.

The 103 sj has 2 platters, the 103uj has 3

Source

Toms Hardware article about them. Good read.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Essenbe:

Thanks for the info and the pointer to the review. I'll read it. Tried to rep you but I gotta spread more around.

I'm wondering if the Seagate/Samsung HD merger is bad news? Seagate has been suffering the last few years and I hope it doesn't carry over to Samsung. I guess it wasn't a merger, but more a case of Seagate taking over the Samsung HD line, with Samsung to supply chips to Seagate for Seagate SSDs.