Hard Drive Enclosure

[autobotto]

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone knows of a small hard drive enclosure that would work with this type of hard drive? Something that can be powered by just USB, no extra power adapters. As far as I can find out, this hard drive is 15mm thick and is designated for enterprise hardware, but I am wondering if it is even possible to use as a small portable hard drive because it requires extra power than a normal consumer level 2.5 hard drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148710

Thanks for any input!

EDIT: Wrong Drive was linked, correct one above!
[strike]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148784[/strike]

 

[JaredDM]

Running a 3.5" drive off the USB power only is a great way to burn out the USB ports on your computer. There's a reason why all the desktop sized externals use a separate power adapter.

Why not just buy a cheap Toshiba Canvio drive?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, autobotto.

Just as @Jared said, you can't power up a 3.5" drive via USB alone. Even if you try a Y cables it still won't work. So regardless of what method you decide to go with (external enclosure, SATA to USB adapter, dock station), please make sure that it can be externally powered.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[autobotto]

Wow I completely linked the wrong drive in the first post. I am so sorry for linking the 3.5 in drive! I meant to link this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148710

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[Paperdoc]

OK, looking at your revised link, it still can't work.

The specs for that drive say its power consumption typically during random read operations is 5.21 W. Now, a new USB3 port can supply at max 5 VDC up to 0.9 amps, or 4.5 W. So that drive wants to receive 16% more power than the max you could get from a USB3 port, and maybe more on occasion. It is VERY likely to malfunction under those conditions. An older USB2 port can supply even less power.

You can buy 1TB 2½" format HDD units designed for use in laptops and often in external enclosures. Most of these are designed to work with max power consumption under 4.5 W and hence could be used as you wish. However, to do that they make some sacrifices in performance, most notably in spindle speed (and hence data transfer speed), sometimes in storage capacity.

However, there are some 1 TB portable hard drive units on the market that spin at 7200 rpm and give reasonably fast data transfer performance. I'm talking about complete external drive units, not HDD units mounted in your own external enclosure. All of these will only work properly with a USB3 port, NOT an older USB2 port, so verify what port type you have to use it with. Then search suppliers for a 1 TB unit that runs at 7200 rpm and is designed to work on a USB3 port without any power adapter.

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for Best Solution, and good luck.