Newbie Question on External Hard Drive Enclosure

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wirm

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Hi folks,

Can someone tell me what exactly an external hard drive enclosure does?

I have two possibilities in my mind:

1) Simply protects an external hard drive
2) Allows you to use an internal hard drive outside of the case


My computer case can only hold 1 internal hard drive at a time (using 80 GB), and I've got an old 40 Gb hard drive lying around. Instead of just throwing both away and buying a bigger drive, I was hoping to put the 40 Gb to use.

My hope is that an external enclosure tricks the spare hard drive into thinking that it is inside the case by converting the default data cable into USB 2.0.

Can someone tell me if this is really the case?

Thank you :p
 
You are on the right track;
-the enclosure protects a normal internal ide HDD
-provides cooling and ide terminal connection via USB/firewire
-There is no tricking going on; The USB will recognize and mount the HDD to you computer and the HDD can be accessed and utilized exactly like any other HDD.
There are some small limitations ,but I would not worry it is a very handy thing to use.
 
That's for the help. One more quick question, please.

I just noticed that there seem to be several different sizes for the enclosures.

2.5", 3.5", and 5.25"

I went for the 3.5", because I'm assuming that 2.5" is for laptops and 5.25" is for CD/DVD drives.
:rolleyes:
Is this the case?

Thank you
 
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