Hi- $10 is incredible! Of course, even if it works well, the unit is for 2.5" drives (laptop stuff). Unless you have one of these, or merely want the adaptor circuitry (remember, pinout on 2.5 is different from 3.5) to repair your ailing units, you should get at least a 3.5" enclosure unit.
A 5.25" enclosure unit is more universal, since it it easy to "adapt down" to 3.5" (with a couple of brackets and a little improvision) or even 2.5" (with pinout converter added). Furthermore, the 5.25" units are likely to run cooler and last longer with the smaller drives, other factors being equal. I have a semi-retirement business assembling and upgrading clones here in birds and bunnies land (Rumney, near Plymouth). I stock some 5.25" USB2/IDE enclosure kits; snap-together plastic with external power supply. They are made primarily for CDROM/DVD and RW units, but with the addition of the proper brackets and fan coolers, they work great for hard drives - you need the fans to keep the heat buildup down (7200 rpm these days, you know!). The enclosures you see sold often have just one fan, sometimes not even that. When someone upgrades their hard drive, I offer to put their old one in one of my enclosures with an added multifan cooler for $50. Installing the multiple fan unit does require a minimal amount of mods (a little hacksaw work on the fan mount to clear a case support, and a dab of epoxy to hold things in (I use JB-Weld). I also reverse one of the fans to maintain an in/out air flow (actually, my fan cooler units have 3 fans, so I also remove the middle one and save it as a spare). They work great, right away with XP, need a driver (supplied on CDROM) for W98, no personal experience with Linux as yet. The only thing I don't like with these units so far is that they are too short to take some of the CD/DVD optical drives, particularly the older ones. Most of the new drives are compact and fit well. But this caveat doesn't apply to any 3.5 IDE drive, all should work fine. If any of you are in the Rumney area (near Plymouth) and I am in the shop, I can sell you the 5.25" enclosure for $25 and the 5.25" bay triple-fan cooler with 3.5" brackets for $7. Or will send them to you for $5 extra. Even if you don't buy anything, you are always welcome. Ever ready to trade hardware/software war stories (although my skirmishes with Linux are mostly in the future at this point). Best to call or email first, I am not always there. (603)-786-2700 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dave Ecklein dba DIACAD ASSOCIATES www.diacad.com (...not updated in quite a while...) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Wittbrodt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "GNHLUG" <gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org> Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 11:22 PM Subject: Re: USB->IDE external adapter $10 > I'd be interested to find out how you make out with this. > > I've had lousy luck with USB to IDE enclosures (two 5.25" intended for > use with DVD burners and one 3.5" self enclosed intended for an > external hard drive). I'm searching now for the manufacturers name > on the now-dead cases with no luck; the packaging is long gone. These > cases all came from the same manufacturer but purchased at different > times from the Rockingham Park computer shows. After 3 months, two of > the enclosures failed outright. The last 5.25" enclosure is still > working but intermittently. The only thing they're good for now is a > quick and easy external power supply for IDE drives. > > Can anyone recommend a good manufacturer for USB to IDE external > enclosures (preferably something you've been using for at least 6 > months). > > Thanks > > -- Tom > > On 7/23/05, Michael ODonnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Since this sort of item gets mentioned on this > > channel from time to time: > > > > http://www.acortech.com/.sc/ms/dd/54801119625566/9/nc/ee/2275 > > > > Free shipping, $8 each for quantity 10 or more. > > > > I don't (yet) own one and I've never done business > > with the company in questions, so caveat emptor... > > _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
