Converting an internal into an external harddrive... possible?

leecho7

leecho7

Partition Master
I'm looking into getting 2 external harddrives for video editing, but realized the prices for external drives are a bit pricey.
I heard you can actually buy an external casing of some sort to kind of convert the internal drive into an external.
Is that possible?

Is it really cost-effective?
 
Blumen

Blumen

Coastermaker
^Yeah, if you look around, you can find enclosures for like $15-20. It's cost effective, i'd say.

Look on www.xoxide.com

I'll try to remember where else i saw them, and post back.
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
You may want to check out one I just reviewed. It's slightly pricier than some, but it's great quality.

Either way, you will want one with USB 2.0 support, and that has good shock protection. If you have both those things, you are set.
 
T

T-Shirt

E.M.I.
leecho7 said:
I'm looking into getting 2 external harddrives for video editing, but realized the prices for external drives are a bit pricey.
I heard you can actually buy an external casing of some sort to kind of convert the internal drive into an external.
Is that possible?

Is it really cost-effective?
Click to expand...
external enclosure can work very well.
but I'm wondering, if you won't be better off with a couple internal drives for the editing and a single large external drive for the final cut/long term storage and backup.
I believe you'll still get the best read/write speed and response times from internal IDE/SATA drives
 
sbrehm72255

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
External cases are easy to find and cheap............;) I switched one of my old PATA drives over into one a while back for backing up the other machines in the house. When I'm finished, the drive is unplugged and truned off keeping everything safe.
 
S

spiffyp

Obliviot
And if you use USB2.0, IEEE1394 or external SATA to connect the enclosure, you won't notice the difference in speed w/ a PATA drive.
 
sbrehm72255

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
LOL........If you can't tell, I'm totally into aluminum componets.............:)

I'd get a aluminum framed LCD if I could find one.............:eek:
 
liqnit

liqnit

E.M.I.
the extternal HD will probably be a growing market in coming years as the price for 2.5" is going down and sizes and speed going up .
there will be spread out as DOK.
 
T

tugovony

Obliviot
liqnit said:
the extternal HD will probably be a growing market in coming years as the price for 2.5" is going down and sizes and speed going up .
there will be spread out as DOK.
Click to expand...

I don't think that the external HD market will ever grow very large. Nobody likes large bulky drives, and most external drives, even the 2.5" drives are cumbersome to carry around.

The thumb drive market will probably grow larger over the years, but the external hard disk market will stay about the same as it is today.
 
F

fussnfeathers

E.M.I.
Eh..........not necessarily. Most "big box" machines come with limited hard drive space. 80-120gb isn't much, and most people don't want to open their boxes to install a new drive, or pay someone to do it. It's much easier to go buy an external drive, plug it in, and rock. I see the external market growing over the next few years, and I see the price on external units coming down even farther to match the demand. Today, you're looking at 50 cents per GB (give or take) for internal, and over double that for external. I see the margin closing to a more realistic 50 cents per GB internal, 75 cents per GB external. I mean, really, an external case is cheap, and with the new perpendicular drive tech out now, WD, Seagate, and Maxtor are gonna be looking hard for ways to dump their old "regular" drives fast. Enter cheaper external drives.

Remember, we're not talking laptop drives, or drives people will carry around. We're talking about no-brainer storage expansion for home users.

Mark my words, it'll happen.
 
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