Drive Enclosures

RWBRWB Icrontian
edited December 2003 in Hardware
I am thinking of selling my current PC and replacing it with a Laptop.

But I want to keep my drives.

Is there an external enclosure for 3 or more drives together?? This way I can just plug in my drives to my latop all at once instead of buying multiple enclosures.

Or any ideas on what I should do?

Comments

  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Unless you can find a good, high-speed SCSI PCMCIA card, your best bet is USB 2 or Firewire enclosures and a hub or two, if necessary.
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Duct tape em to the lid.

    You're welcome, Merry Christmas, no charge.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Wait... nevermind... I just looked up PCMCIA scsi cards. Guess what? Apparently 20MB/s is the maximum for PCMCIA... hehe. Ooops.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Found some stuff

    Firewire:
    http://www.cooldrives.com/firen.html
    http://www.xtradisk.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/firewire-raid.html

    Firewire & USB2:
    http://www.cooldrives.com/2bayfiplusb2.html
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    They are basically just a few enclosers put together and hubbed ehh? If so, I could just build it myself I guess... which ever way is cheaper of course ;)

    Thanks for those links, I couldn't find one at newegg...
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    The pre-fab enclosures with multiple drives are actually one unit; they have one firewire controller, and a multi-channel IDE controller.

    However, the effect is still the same as if you had multiple enclosures on a hub- if you try to transfer data to/from more than one disk per enclosure at a time (unless you're doing disk --> disk in the same enclosure), you're going to clog up the bus.

    Firewire is only 400Mb/s, which is very roughly 40MB/s, so...
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    There are also kits for that at Cyberguys. Please note that UDMA4 is ATA\66, UDMA 5 is ATA\100, UDMA 6 is ATA\133. This enclosure does ATA\66 max (the third linked one, geeky1). BTW, beware of cheap ones, this third one is heavier built, decent controller for ATA\66 and down. Result is, HDs would lag behind the FrieWire ability, and adapter card would have to buffer and ideally also burst.

    John.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Well that is no problem, this is for storage/backup, and not keeping gams on them ;) I want to keep my CD/RW and DVD-ROM JUST IN CASE :D

    That is more than enough bandwidth. I'll be ordering these and that notebook soon hopefully! Then sell of my PC, and pray my parts sell well.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Why get rid of the desktop?
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited December 2003
    Dude I use them all the time. There are a ton for real cheap at DealSonic . In fact I just ordered 1 for a 2.5 inch drive for 23$ today! Its purty complete with red and blue cathodes :) .

    Anyways they work real slick. plug em into a usb 2.0 port and winders will mount it as if it were an internal drive. No drivers or anything needed.

    the larger ones are fairly bulky to be carrying more than one wit your lappy though. but dealsonic has some good larger ones with lights and stuff for <30$.

    Good luck and Merry Christmas!!!


    BTW here's the one I ordered today for 23$ Its sweet. My friend ordered 1 the other day and it came today. Looks quite cute too.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    The latop is better than my PC in almost everyway, except the HDD speed. So I figure, a Laptop that I can use as my desktop would be better than a desktop that isn't mobile at all.

    So I will probablys ell my Desktop if I cannot get enough money. I will also get a job, but I won't be able to work very much due to how much I have to be in class.

    I won't be carrying these extrenal drives around, so I don't need a mobile drive thing at all. They will just stay at my desk for when I need to plug my Computer in.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    hehe, I JUST noticed a Storage and Controllers forum section.... ugh.

    Sometimes I feel like an idiot.
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