Topic: Adapter that turns internal HD into external USB drive. Is it good?

[fuck you]

Hello,

I happened upon this item on eBay when looking at somone's feedback.  The auction is long since finished but the device looks like a real money saver.

HDD/CD/DVD USB 2.0 ADAPTER XP  Item number: 2784837968

It allows you to take a regular internal harddrive and make it an external one.  You plug the one end into the HD and the other in to the 2.0 USB on your PC.

You can pick up used, "outdated" HDs for cheap, each in the tens of GBs.  The device truely looks like a money saver.

Regardless of what it says in the specs I have some questions for those who may have tested this in the real world.

1) Does this really work?  I don't need something that will not work perfectly on my PC.  I am not a PC wiz and want something that is 100% reliable, worry free plug and play, with no tinkering.

2) My current PC was bought new in late 2000.  It has first generation USB 1 inputs.  This is a USB 2.0 gadget.  Will I still be able to use my existing USB 1 inputs?  Specs say it works with 1.1.

3) Are there any pros and cons that I should also have to consider?

I want to start doing some 24 bit analog>digital transfers sometime this year and got to thinkning that I may be able to gut out and fill my old 1998 tower, somehow link a bunch of used HDs together, power all with the tower's power supply and USB the whole thing to my existing PC.

Can it work?

Thanks in advance for advise, replys.


Darren

[Simp-Dawg]

external drive enclosures do work.  you plug the drive into it, plug the device into your computer, and in most cases it just shows up as another drive.  most enclosures come with any necessary software to install the device, it shouldn't cause you any problems.
the drive will work on your usb 1.0 ports.  usb 2.0 devices (all of them that i am familiar with) are backwards-compatible with usb 1.0.  it will just be a slower transfer rate.  

[John Kelly]

And by slower transfer rate, he means DOG SLOW.  I wouldn't recommend getting an external drive unless you had firewire or USB2.  

[fuck you]

And by slower transfer rate, he means DOG SLOW.  I wouldn't recommend getting an external drive unless you had firewire or USB2.  

T+ to everyone for their help.  

Dog slow.  If I had, say, a 3 GB show will it take more than 20 min to transfer?  I have that much time on hand.  But then again,  USB 2. cards are cheap these days.

Also, is there any other methods that I can use to build an external HD that may be better?

Are there any illustrated Do It Yourself type sites out there that you can recommend?

[John Kelly]

I actually had to use a USB 1.1 external about a week ago.  It took around a half hour per gigabyte.  It's painfully slow...

And the easiest way is just to buy an enclosure.  Newegg.com has one for $38.99 that I use, works great.  (Edit - but that is for a laptop hard drive, dunno about 3.5" hard drives)

[Simp-Dawg]

no on building your own...external enclosures are quite cheap anyways.

[fuck you]

no on building your own...external enclosures are quite cheap anyways.

Not really keen on enclosures unless they can fit about 6 -7 harddrives.

Do they make them like this?

[John Kelly]

Not sure, but if you were to the firewire route you can always daisychain them...

[fozzy]

I would have to recommend the USB enlosure and dropping another 30 to get the 2.0 card.  Otherwise you just got a pile of space to store stuff w/ the 2.0 you can actually use the drive more and performace would  be similar to an internal drive.  I have to transer large amounts of data between my powerbook and PC's so i picked up a firewire/USB 2.0 chassis and it is awesome.  I paid an extra 20 for it to support both but well worth it.

This is the one i got http://www.mapower.com.tw/map-h31.htm w/ a cheap 60gig IBM 3.5" drive in it.  Total spent w/ new usb card, HD and chassis was less the $150.