OEM hard drive worry

[technood]

I am thinking of getting an internal hard drive to use as an external back up drive (using the correct usb to ide/sata cable ) seeing that OEM drives have no tops on, how is the drive kept dust free, I plan to put it in a drive caddy / enclosure but as they have cooling slots for obvious reasons the drive inside will still be exposed to a certain degree.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey technood. If you really want to get an internal drive and use it as an external, you should look for a good, well ventilated external enclosure or a docking station, don't use it with just a SATA to USB cable. The drive caddy is a different thing. It's basically a device with a slot for 2.5" drives which you can connect to a laptop instead of its optical drive in order to have an additional HDD slot. Don't worry about dust, trust me - it's everywhere even if you don't see it. Even if you put it in a computer case, dust will accumulate after awhile. That's why people should go to technicians (if they can't do it themselves) to clean up their PCs and laptops from time to time.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[McHenryB]

seeing that OEM drives have no tops on, how is the drive kept dust free.

Where on earth did you get that idea from? I think someone has been pulling your leg. An OEM hard drive is identical to a retail one except it won't come with cables or software. I'm not sure you can even buy many internal hard drives in OEM or retail versions; you just buy a hard drive.

 

[technood]

Ebay has pages of OEM hard drives that have no tops making the insides open to the elements, that is where I saw them for sale and the reason I posted my question. I contacted an Ebay seller asking if the drives were enclosed and commented on dust contamination and he said they were OEM and didnt come with tops that is why I assumed all OEM drives were the same.

 

[technood]

Hey technood. If you really want to get an internal drive and use it as an external, you should look for a good, well ventilated external enclosure or a docking station, don't use it with just a SATA to USB cable. The drive caddy is a different thing. It's basically a device with a slot for 2.5" drives which you can connect to a laptop instead of its optical drive in order to have an additional HDD slot. Don't worry about dust, trust me - it's everywhere even if you don't see it. Even if you put it in a computer case, dust will accumulate after awhile. That's why people should go to technicians (if they can't do it themselves) to clean up their PCs and laptops from time to time.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

Are you saying the usb to ide cables are no good or just that the dock is a better option, my plan was to put my drive into an enclosure and use with the cable anyway, not to have the drive just sitting on my desk cabled through the usb port.

 

[McHenryB]

I feel like I am Alice in Wonderland!

All the hard drives on eBay - OEM or otherwise - have the platters and heads fully enclosed. Of course they do, they wouldn't work otherwise. Hard drives are sealed units.

Correction: I've found an example of what you mean: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Western-Digital-WD10EZEX-Caviar-Blue-1TB-7200RPM-64MB-OEM-Hard-Drive-/310866426565?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4861153ac5
Don't worry, that's not how the actual drive would look. But, just to be on the safe side, don't buy from anyone who pictures their drives like this - there are plenty who don't. I guess that eBay is such a mess of scammers that someone might just sell opened hard drives, even though they would be useless.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Yup, it's just as @McHenryB said in the post above mine about the hard drives being sealed. Other than that why would you want an IDE drive for an external enclosure and what do you mean by having it in an enclosure, but not being connected via a USB cable? Would you please give me the model of the motherboard of your computer and a link if possible for the drive you're looking at?

 

[technood]

Yup, it's just as @McHenryB said in the post above mine about the hard drives being sealed. Other than that why would you want an IDE drive for an external enclosure and what do you mean by having it in an enclosure, but not being connected via a USB cable? Would you please give me the model of the motherboard of your computer and a link if possible for the drive you're looking at?

Sorry as you see by my U/N im not techy at all, I have no idea what type of motherboard I have. The caddy I have is a metal enclosure that plugs into the drive that slides inside the casing, then its closed up and all connections are via the appropriate sockets in the casing, it uses a mains cable and a usb to my pc, the drive is visible on my pc and I am able to store data on the enclosed disk like its an external hard drive.the one I have is 160 GB capacity and works fine, the same drive works fine via the usb to Sata/ IDE cable but of course the drive is naked as it were and im not too keen on that method.( I prefer the caddy type) I was just confused / concerned about the drives on Ebay that were open, like I said I even contacted a seller and he said all OEM drives are sold like that.Seeing what McHenryB says above confirms my concerns and I will stay away from those types,

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Now I think I understand what you mean by caddy, this is probably a mounting rack/kit for the inside of the computer case.
Many manufacturer's portray the drives this way. This is not an actual photograph of the drive you're going to get, but you should be careful with who you buy from. I'd suggest that you do it from an authorized reseller or directly from the manufacturer's website.
As for the motherboard, I was asking, because I wanted to take a look if it has SATA ports, because you mentioned an IDE cable and i wanted to be sure that you don't get a drive which you wouldn't be able to connect to the motherboard.
To find out what's motherboard you have click start and just type in dxdiag and press "enter". This way you'll open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool and in the first tab - system (which will be selected by default) you'll see 2 lines: System Manufacturer and System Model, those 2 show the manufacturer of the mother board and its model respectively although if the computer is OEM (bought from a specific brand, there would probably be shown the model and name of the computer instead of the motherboard).

 

[technood]

Now I think I understand what you mean by caddy, this is probably a mounting rack/kit for the inside of the computer case.
Many manufacturer's portray the drives this way. This is not an actual photograph of the drive you're going to get, but you should be careful with who you buy from. I'd suggest that you do it from an authorized reseller or directly from the manufacturer's website.
As for the motherboard, I was asking, because I wanted to take a look if it has SATA ports, because you mentioned an IDE cable and i wanted to be sure that you don't get a drive which you wouldn't be able to connect to the motherboard.
To find out what's motherboard you have click start and just type in dxdiag and press "enter". This way you'll open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool and in the first tab - system (which will be selected by default) you'll see 2 lines: System Manufacturer and System Model, those 2 show the manufacturer of the mother board and its model respectively although if the computer is OEM (bought from a specific brand, there would probably be shown the model and name of the computer instead of the motherboard).

The system manufacturer is Dell and system model is OptiPlex GS62O. I know my internal hard drive if IDE interface but using the usb cable or caddy my pc sees both IDE or Sata drives

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Well if this is the case you should be fine with buying a SATA drive, just remember to be careful, where you buy it from.
And this is indeed the manufacturer of the computer and it's model instead of the motherboard's manufacturer. But that doesn't matter anymore if you're saying that your computer is OK with both IDE and SATA drives.

 

[technood]

Well if this is the case you should be fine with buying a SATA drive, just remember to be careful, where you buy it from.
And this is indeed the manufacturer of the computer and it's model instead of the motherboard's manufacturer. But that doesn't matter anymore if you're saying that your computer is OK with both IDE and SATA drives.

Thanks for all the help you have given.