External case to hold 4 2.5 inch portable hard drives

[dennisg9987]

Hi, I have 4ea 2.5 inch portable hard drives plugged in to my Dell XPS pc. Is there a protective case I can put these in to avoid killing them when and if the fall?

Thanks,
Dennis

 

[hang-the-9]

I don't think they make a 4 drive bay for 2.5" drives, especially external ones but you can make something from other parts. Keep in mind that it may prevent damage to the case, but a fall can still damage the platters and internals, especially if they are moving. Keep in mind there can be a heat issue is you fully stick the drives in foam or something.

Best thing to do, get a NAS box, hook it up to your network and access the files over the network where the box sits on the floor or desk or somewhere without being moved.

 

[asoroka]

you can get a 4 disk usb enclosure if you don't want a NAS box.

https://www.umart.com.au/ICY-BOX--IB-141CL-U3--Docking-Clone-Station--4-Bay--HDD--SATA--USB-3-0_31518G.html

However nothing is going to protect them if you drop them while they are active. You are better off with a remote NAS, if you can accept the performance degradation.

Alternately if you must have it connected to your pc, why not just get one big disk and have one small enclosure? Why do you need 4 disks?
How are they currently connected?

Do you mean you want to protect them when not in use or do you actually have 4 external drives connected to your PC.
Have you considered putting all or some of your drives as internal inside your case?

 

[dennisg9987]

Hi, Thanks for ideas.
I just kept adding external hard drives for various reasons...main storage, backup, mirror drive etc. Got into photography and then really needed additional storage. I originally went to 5tb Seagate drives but killed 2 of them..1 drop another died during an office move, so decided to go with smaller drives, so failure not as catastrophic.

I have since added external drive dock and added 2 4tb drives, one inside the case and 1 in the dock.
This seems to be working, but dock does lose connection to computer occasionally.
Thanks again
Dennis.