How to make an external hard drive

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
How difficult is it to make a external hard drive? If you buy a external case, and then a hard drive, how hard is it to put together. Also, what would you recommend for hard drives? What about cases? Also, should the case have a fan installed in it? I read through 9 pages of search, and found some interesting things, but not that answered my questions.



I'm looking for a USB 2.0 case, and a hard drive that would work with this, with at least 250GB. It will be running through a Macbook (Intel Core 2 Duo), and occasionaly the odd PC machine. I also would like to partition a portion of it to run Windows XP. Thanks in advance.



Oh, is there anything in particular I should watch for? Looked at a 60$ case at Future Shop, and that got me thinking harder about this. And is there any issues with building your own drive, as compared to buying a pre-made one (Lacie, or whatever)?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    aquamacaquamac Posts: 585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Craddosk View Post


    How difficult is it to make a external hard drive? If you buy a external case, and then a hard drive, how hard is it to put together. Also, what would you recommend for hard drives? What about cases? Also, should the case have a fan installed in it? I read through 9 pages of search, and found some interesting things, but not that answered my questions.



    I'm looking for a USB 2.0 case, and a hard drive that would work with this, with at least 250GB. It will be running through a Macbook (Intel Core 2 Duo), and occasionaly the odd PC machine. I also would like to partition a portion of it to run Windows XP. Thanks in advance.



    Oh, is there anything in particular I should watch for? Looked at a 60$ case at Future Shop, and that got me thinking harder about this. And is there any issues with building your own drive, as compared to buying a pre-made one (Lacie, or whatever)?



    I believe you can't use Windows XP with bootcamp from an external HD, Sorry.

    As for HD recommendations I would get an SATA II Seagate they have a good warranty 5 years and very good customer service.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    k_munick_munic Posts: 357member
    I'm using firewire cases only, 'cause I need the ext. drives for video only ...



    I own 3 different cases, latest is a MacMini look-alike ...

    all cases in common:

    4 screws to open, 4 screws to install drive

    connect two cables, power and ata - done.

    that mini case has some gluetape to stick a sensor onto the hd spindle to measure temperature...

    make sure, drive is set to "master"...



    all that done in less then 5min.. ok, 10min..

    and I'm NO engineer nor rocket scientists



    example: for while, short in money, I had one single "open" case, and swapped 3 harddrives "on the fly" (power disconnected...) - THAT easy ...
  • Reply 3 of 5
    santasanta Posts: 67member
    I have had good results with Laser brand cases but don't know if they're available in the States. They only cost about $40 US.



    http://tinyurl.com/28ko5l



    Also, I use Seagate drives (8 so far) with good results. Maxtor (3 bad ones out of 4) weren't to good.



    Remenber that Serial ATA (SATA) are different drives to parallel ATA and require different cases.



    The later Macs use SATA, and if you want a backup drive that can be dropped into a G5 or Intel chipped Mac tower if need be, then you'll need a SATA drive and case. Otherwise, ATA is fine.



    You might also consider using a USB2 and Firewire combined case. If one fails, you've always got the other cable. They don't cost much more.



    http://www.shopbot.com.au/p-35205.html
  • Reply 4 of 5
    Ok, next set of questions. I have no plans to drop the HD into a G5 or a Mac tower, so which would be more beneficial for general use, SATA or parallel ATA? Speed differences? Storage capacities? And what's the minimum RPM speed that the HD should have? Once again, Thanks!
  • Reply 5 of 5
    if you're using usb2, THAT is the bottleneck, not the rpms of your drive... in an external case, S-ATA is only usefull with a REALLY fast connection... again, usb2 is the bottleneck... (its theoritical max. speed is not supported on Macs...)
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