Fitting a hdd drive inside pc tower with a pci card?

I never had a heat problem with any one of my 3 open docks. They are ideal for stationary use. For travel, the USB powered closed docks are better.

whs said:

I never had a heat problem with any one of my 3 open docks. They are ideal for stationary use. For travel, the USB powered closed docks are better.

I agree on all counts except I never ran HDDs continuously in a dock.

I have three of these, one as a spare and the other two I now use for backups for my notebook when on the road.

It comes with a single USB 3.0 A to mini-B cable. Since my notebook only has USB 2.0, I wasn't able to get enough power to run the 2.5" 500GB WD Blacks I wanted to run in the enclosures so I had to rustle up some USB 3.0 Y-cables.

The second USB A connector steals power from a second USB 2.0 port so the HDD can get enough power to run. If my notebook had had one USB 3.0 port, it would have had enough power to run the HDD by itself.

I used to use open docks for my notebook's backup drives but feel the enclosures will be more convenient. Since I don't need the docks anymore, the drives take up less room in my notebook's case.

For the on-the-road backups I got this stick - I also use a 64GB MicroSD card.

A stick is compact but, until they come with 500GB sticks, methinks I'll stick to the HDDs. I keep a clone of the SDD in my notebook on one so, if the SSD goes completely belly up, I can pull the clone out of the enclosure and pop it into the notebook. The other HDD has images of the OS partitions, the recovery partition, and the data partition so I can easily restore the SSD if it should ever go wonky. I backup any data I generate while on the road to the clone HDD using FreeFileSync. Since the added data is confined to a single folder, it is easy to transfer the data to my desktop when I get home.

For my Transformer the stick is ideal because my Macrium images of that system are only 6.2GBs. So I can fit plenty on the 128GBs. I also backup my data from the MicrpSD card. But that is only a few GBs - at least now.

whs said:

For my Transformer the stick is ideal because my Macrium images of that system are only 6.2GBs. So I can fit plenty on the 128GBs. I also backup my data from the MicrpSD card. But that is only a few GBs - at least now.

LOL! You realize comparing your Transformer to my Lenovo is like comparing a Ford Focus to a Ford F150? My notebook System images are 16.2GB. My notebook is also my spare computer should my desktop go down so I expect a bit more form it than you would from your Transformer.

The Transformer is a neat little system for travel. Small, light and plenty fast. And you can use it like a laptop or as a tablet. We use it only for travel. For the rest we have 2 desktops and 4 laptops.

My images from this system are also mighty big - around 40GBs. But for those I use stationary disks 640GB and 1TB plus a 360GB partition on one of the internal spinners. The laptops have their own dedicated external backup disks - 500GB each. I am an imaging fanatic. LOL

waw,I've learn't quite a bit here today with all the replies and useful info regarding hdd's.
maybe before we close is it possible to have some good tips on using the hdd enclosure and good simple methods on backing up etc.
Many Thanks Once Again.
Dai from south wales uk.

There are no special tricks. An external disk is just another 'folder'.

For periodic backups, I recommend free Macrium. Read and view the tutorial carefully and burn the recovery CD linked (twice) in the first blue information box.

Imaging with free Macrium

whs said:

The Transformer is a neat little system for travel. Small, light and plenty fast. And you can use it like a laptop or as a tablet. We use it only for travel. For the rest we have 2 desktops and 4 laptops.

My images from this system are also mighty big - around 40GBs. But for those I use stationary disks 640GB and 1TB plus a 360GB partition on one of the internal spinners. The laptops have their own dedicated external backup disks - 500GB each. I am an imaging fanatic. LOL

I'm not far behind you. In addition to the system images I keep on the external HDD for my notebook, I also keep duplicate copies on my desktop (which also gets backed up). I also image data only on the notebook. If I were to do that on my desktop, I would die of old age (I'm already closer to that than I care for).

I mage my boot SSD once a week and just before I make any major changes to my computer, such as adding a program. I prefer imaging to System Restore (and have it turned off). I don't image the data, however. I use FreeFileSync to back up my data drives. It's much, much faster than imaging or cloning, enough so, I can backup daily. The backup is usable as is. Since my boot drive images are stored on a data drive, they also get backed up. I keep two backup drives for each HDD in service at home and two more in a safe deposit box at my credit union.