Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

I'm looking to buy a hard drive enclosure to attach to my linux box, and I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with the AEN-U35SE from Airlink (see http://www.airlink101.com/products/aenu35se.php ). It's fairly cheap at my local Fry's, but I'm wondering if anyone has had any issues with it, both with linux compatibility and cooling (they say it's fanless, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad). This would be attached to a server as bulk storage and wouldn't be under high usage, but I'm not wanting to doom my hard drive to certain death.
I can't find any reviews of it at all online, so I guess it must be at least fairly new. It's not carried by Tigerdirect or NewEgg, so I can't find anything there.
EDIT:
Gah, this product is apparantly discontinued, which is probably why NewEgg and TigerDirect didn't have it. Anything anyone can recommend? I only need one drive, and fanless is good as long as the drive doesn't overheat.
Last edited by arew264 (2009-06-12 22:46:07)

combuster wrote:Just avoid coolermaster enclosures, they don't work on linux, got a x-craft lite 250 on some laptop review competition and it doesn't get recognized...
Shame on them, that or just plain cheap crappy chips they used to make it
On the issue of enclosures .... nothing I can recommend because so far I'm not happy with any I bought. On the compatibility side they are all ok but after a good period of time (1year or 1.5years) the the hd sometimes starts acting strange. It stops and restarts almost immediately, a problem that doesn't happen when I plug it inside my desktop pc. In one of the external enclosures I have narrowed the problem to the power supply.
I could plug a Y power cable and monitor the voltages with a multimeter, the 5V rail would be 4.5V when the disk acted strange but for some reason sometimes the rail was close to the nominal 5V (4.9V~5.1V) and everything would work well.
Because of this I have started to believe that the power supplies that have the 12V and 5V output are a big no no, there are several reasons for me not to like it specially because all of the 2 I have behave the same way >_<.
If possible I would get an enclosure that receives only 12V from the outside and then generates the 5V internally but I believe that is hard to find.
The two enclosures I have have are:
http://en.vipower.com/products01_01.php?ID=154 (this one as a bit expensive usb2 to ide)
http://www.tecforsis.pt/produto.asp?idproduto=16907 (cheap box usb2 to sata/ide)

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Looking to buy a hard drive, wondering which brand is the best

i'm trying to expand my computer. actually, my current hard drive won't mount and while i'm attempting to retreive the data, i still want to use my computer.
anyway, i found what i think is a really good deal on a hard drive, and i'm wondering if it's too good to be true. it's the western digital drive in this link...
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=760061
is this just a crazy good deal or is there something wrong with this hard drive that i'm just missing? it seems all right, but if there's something sub par about it i'd rather spend the extra money and get a good drive.
thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer.

I'll vouch for the Seagate 500 that Jeff linked. I have one.
The 7200.10 series, and the 16gb cache brings SATA enterprise class performance and reliability to ATA.
As well, haven't had a Seagate ATA drive fail in over 8 years of use (own 5 of different sizes and series).
It's also dead silent.
The WD Caviar, as well, has enjoyed recent updates, also due to SATA development. The Caviar line is a favorite of many, and is seen as a reliable performer. The above linked WD drive description can be found on the WD clearance page:
http://www.wdc.com/en/buy/clearancedrives.asp?DriveID=251

Looking to buy a hard drive to use as network drive with EA4500, help with compatibility options

I need a new hard drive, I would like at least a 2TB, or more ideally a 3TB. The only drive I see on the list that would work is the STAY 3000100 Expansion 3TB External HD USB 2.0. There is another 3TB drive that shows as being compatible, but it's a Western Digital and I haven't had good luck with WD. I was wondering if anyone else has a 2TB or 3TB drive that they are using successfully, even though it's not on the tested compatible list. I have already tried using my OWC Mercury On-The-Go 1TB, and it won't even recognize a drive as being plugged in. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

As far as I know, that is the only list of compatible drives with the router. So, yes, that is the list I am referring to when I said "compatible drive list". There are very few 2TB or 3TB drives on the list. I would really like to be able to use a 3TB drive with a couple partitions, and that seems almost impossible with very few options. I have been reading around the last couple days and I hear lots of reports of people successfully using drives that are not on the tested compatible list. I just wanted to know more options from people like that.

Hard drive enclosure

Hi,
I bought a Eaglebit- Writebox external hard drive enclosure to house my old iBook G3 40 GB hard drive. I'm fairly confident I assembled it properly, but I can't see to get my MacBook (original black model) to recognize it. It doesn't show up in Disk Utility, system profiler, or anywhere else. It is a IDE/SATA to USB enclosure. There is no power source other than the USB connection. When I switch the device on, it doesn't make any noise, so I'm not even sure if it is running?
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

The two USBs on the cord are to power the drive on certain computers that can't provide enough power on USB to spin the drive properly.
Can you provide a link to the enclosure you bought? (Looks like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817193033)
Despite it saying that it is compatible with Mac OS X, many people say it isn't in the reviews. You may be out of luck.
What are you trying to do? Do you have another computer? Do you have Leopard on another computer to use with Time Machine? If that's the case, I'd recommend you just clone the G3 HDD to a new external enclosure/HDD that you would buy if you are trying to transfer information.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go OWC is always good with their externals for 2.5" drives. Though this one is SATA and not ATA (IDE)

Recommendations for hard drive enclosures

Hi,
My G5 1.8ghz Dual Power Mac finally died today after eight years good service. I'm looking to remove the hard drive and wondered if anybody had any recommendations for enclosures that I could put it in? Is there anything I need to bear in mind when buying the enclosure or are they all pretty standard?
I've already purchased a new iMac as a replacement computer - I just want to be able to access the data in the old hard drive.
Thanks in advance

After going through several, I can only recommend those from OWC (Kappy's last link). I just stripped down a Western Digital Sudio Mac Edition external with a quad interface i bought seveal years ago to recover the bare drive becasue the enclosure's been nothing but a royal PITA.
The drive itself is fine but the enclosure uses a very Mac-unfriendly set of hardware that has sleep issues, lock-up issues, noise issues, won't properly mount to the Desktop, runs hot, and so on. Until I get a new OWC enclosure for the bare WD drive, I moved an older OWC external to take over the backup functions and it works like a dream. And it has a slower interface (FireWire400) but takes little longer to backup than the WD with FW800.
WD makes great internal drives--we have many in our menagerie of Macs--but their enclosures are just cheap and not Mac-friendly, even though I bought the "Mac Edition" version.

New Hard Drive Enclosure not being detected by Mac

Hi. I've been having problems with my external hard drive. I went out and bought a hard drive enclosure today at Best Buy for more storage on my eMac. After putting it together, I plugged it into my Windows 7 computer to test it out and it worked perfectly, but when I tried to plug it into my Mac computer nothing happened. I went to Disk Utility to check for the drive but nothing appeared. All the USB ports on my computer work great as I have used them all before, but I am unsure as to why it can't detect my drive. I then tried plugging the drive into the USB port in the keyboard and at least got a "USB Low Power Notice". (Better than nothing, right?) This is a relatively old mac computer (2003?) and the software has never been updated because its not connected to the internet and never has been. The USB hard drive enclosure uses USB 3.0 and the hard drive has been formatted to NTFS. Is there anything I can do to get it to work? I can access it and everything on my Windows computer, so why does it not even appear in Disk Utility or the USB Device Tree on my Mac? The manual says that it is compatible with both Mac and PC. Thanks in advance.

If your hard drive plugged into a Windows machine and worked, then it is probably formatted with FAT32 or ExFAT. For some reason, a lot of eMac's have trouble mounting disks formatted with such file systems. If possible, back up any data on the hard drive, format it to Mac OS Extended, and try it with the eMac again.
Also, it is trivial to try the ports with other devices that are known to work with the eMac, etc, etc.

Hello, My computer crashed, I removed the hard drive and installed it into a hard drive enclosure and now I am trying to get my Thunderbird data off of it

Hello,
Thank you for taking a look at my problem. My Windows computer crashed so I removed the hard drive and installed it into a hard drive enclosure and connected it to my new Windows computer with a USB cord. I installed Mozilla Thunderbird on my new computer and read the different tutorials on this website for extracting data from the external hard drive and installing it on my new computer however I cannot seem to be able to find the files that I need and quite frankly I do not know how to move them once I do find them. I even tried MozBackup but it could not find the files either. I searched for profiles.ini in the hard drive and the only hit I got was a profiles.ini file that was 111 bytes in size. I assumed that this was not what I was looking for but I did save a copy on my desktop. If someone has experience with moving files from a hard drive to a new computer I would be grateful for the help.
Thanks,
AN

lets get with the program. Mozbackup is useless in this situation because it looks for your profile in the location Thunderbird says it is.
You biggest hurdle is probably setting windows to show system and hidden files. The %appdata% folders are hidden by windows.

Need help finding correct external hard drive enclosure for a T61 hard drive

Hi, recently my lenovo T61's video card fizzled out right after the warranty expired. I have information on the laptop's hard drive that i need to get off of it. I have a hard drive enclosure for my old hp laptop's hard drive but the two drive have different connectors. I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction to find a lenovo T61 hard drive compatible external hard drive enclosure.
The hard drive is a 100 GB 7200 RPM drive
Model: HTS722010K9SA00
HDD: 7K200-100
LENOVO P/N: 42T1056
HITACHI P/N: 0A53257
MLC: DA2141

what model is your HP laptop? also how old is it?
Prior to SATA connector there is the PATA connector.
http://archmemory.mobi/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=106&imz_s=4c80f54d8ae8704709fec3ff867052fe
have a look at this.
Regards,
Jin Li
May this year, be the year of 'DO'!
I am a volunteer, and not a paid staff of Lenovo or Microsoft

Working with Captivate in Hard Drive Enclosure

Got a new computer and put the hard drive from my
old computer in a Hard Drive Enclosure. To get Captivate to work I
had to re-enter my key ... can open demo Captivate sample cp but
when I try to open Captivate files that I created the file starts
to load in Captivate and then Captivate closes. Using version 1.
Any Ideas?
Thanks,
Sid

Hi:
Thanks for the quick response.
See link to Hard Drive Enclosure .... I took the hard drive
out of my old computer and put it in the enclosure .... then you
hook up the enclosure to your new computer via a USB connection ...
I can run any applicaitons on the old hard drive by ... simply go
to my computer and look for dive f: to access.
http://www.dynexproducts.com/pc-291-2-dynex-usb-external-hard-drive-enclosure.aspx
Cheers,
Doug

External Hard Drive Enclosure won't mount

Hi
I have a Western Digital Caviar WD3200JD 1TB SATA hard drive inside an external startech enclosure
http://www.startech.com/item-download/SAT3510U2B-35in-USB-to-SATA-External-Hard- Drive-Enclosure-with-One-Button-Backup.aspx
It won't mount on my mac, it won't recognise it in disk utility either
I mounts fine on a PC running Vista. I have formatted it as NTFS but it will still not shoe on my mac
Anything else I can try?
Thanks!

my 12 inch powerbook laptop body was no good, but the hard drive was. I had a powermac g4 tower with a bad harddrive. After researching, I found this site and I mounted the laptop harddrive into the desktop and boom! my old laptop drive booted up on the desktop powermac. here is the link. a 3 yr old can install this it is way too easy, plus it cost 99 Cents. way cheaper than buying an enclosure.
http://www.b2cshop24.com/en/hard-drive-ide-25-to-35-adapter-converter-for-laptop .html

Does FireWire 800 see individual drives in a four bay hard drive enclosure?

I am trying to find a four bay hard drive enclosure with FireWire 800 interface, AND through this one FW800 connection my OS can see the four hard drives individually (similar to USB interface or Port Multiplier on eSATA interface). Anyone knows whether such a product exists? Thanks.

I'm not sure you fully understand how the hardware/software RAID system functions. If you create a mirrored RAID with either then you have redundancy for drive failure. This would be the case for either hardware or software arrays. If you create a striped array with hardware or software then there is no redundancy regardless of which method you use.
An enclosure failure can occur whether you use software or hardware based arrays, so the failure risks are the same. There's no reason to believe that the failure risk of the enclosure would be greater than using software. In fact it's likely that the hardware would be more reliable. As for differences between eSATA and Firewire reliability I'm not sure why your would believe one is more reliable than the other unless you have data that supports such a conclusion.
If you are overly cautious about backups (which is a good thing) then I would look for an enclosure in which you could have two separate striped arrays. Then the two striped arrays are configured into a single mirrored array. That way you have two separate backups - a main one and the mirror. This gives both drive and data redundancy. The main risk is if one drive in each array fails simultaneously. The risk of this would be fairly low I would think. Even this risk can be removed if the box supports other types of arrays than just 0, 1, and 0-1. See the following:
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison>.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?

The manufacturer that creates the Mac Pro hard drive enclosure

I want to purchase another hard drive enclosure and I know there are a few companies that manufacture drives resembling the Mac Pro. Rosewell and Coolgear...but which one does the massive storage version with 5 drives on RAID with option of firewire 800 or SATA output? Its almost half the size of the Mac Pro.
I've been googling this one for awhile and I remember seeing it somewhere.

Hi Erik,
Here they are from Gtech called Gspeed:
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-SPEED.cfm
I saw one at buffalo sites, it comes with 4 drive enclosure.
But it doesn't look like macpro shape at all.
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/external-drives/drivestation/
Good Luck

Looking for replacement internal hard drives for a MacPro

Looking to replace internal hard drives in a MacPro. Was thinking about 3TB. Any recommendations?

Look in System Report for the link speed available. (Mine says 3 Gigabit.) Get drives with at least that speed; going beyond that won't get you any more performance.

When i look at how much hard drive space i have available, my mac says i have 250 gigs used up in backup. I can not find this backup file to delete it and free up the space

When i look at how much hard drive space i have available, my mac says i have 250 gigs used up in backup. I can not find this backup file to delete it and free up the space

OmniDiskSweeper is a free utility that checks HD space.
FreeSpace cost $1 or is a free utility that checks HD space.
SpaceControl is a free utility that checks HD space.

What type of hard drive enclosure do I need for my old hard drive?

What type of hard drive enclosure do I need for the hard drive from my old macbook pro? The graphics card doesn't work on the old laptop and there were some files that were not on my last backup that I transferred to the new macbook pro.

Check eBay. Any 2.5" USB SATA HDD enclosure.
17" 2.2GHz i7 Quad-Core MacBook Pro  8G RAM  750G HD + OCZ Vertex 3 SSD Boot HD 

Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

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