Here is a Roundup into my reserach into 2.5″ Hard drive Size Cases. to find a good one for tech support that can be attatched to as many different machines as possible, most have some ports or not others or other issues firewire power supplied through usb ports etc.
What I wanted From The ideal external 2.5″ drive :
• USB 1.0 preferably bus powered capable
• USB 2.0 preferably bus powered capable
• Firewire 400 must be bus powered capable
• Firewire 800 bus powered capable
• Must be Firewire bootable in 800/400 mode, and preferably usb bootable if possible ive heard possible on the PC side
• Internal interface SATA I/II capable
• perhaps preferably also capable of taking standard ide drives internally as well
• possibly also an external esata interface as well
• and preferably drive swappable without the use of tools
• and also preferable a pass through port to attatch other devices though not esential.
• also perhaps the possibility of using an external power supply to power it in emergency.
• auto power on off with the machine power on off
• plus a switch to turn the drive on off
• dim non blarey/turn offable /intrusive power on and access drive indicator lights
• perhaps even a retractable cable into body design with flat data cable on a spindle type scenario.
The following drives have come close to meeting this criteria:
OYEN digital 2.5-inch
this is the most port comprehensive 2.5″ external enclosure i can find on the market, pretty much future proof ports wise, niggles only handles upto sata 2.5 drives 1.5Gbps ie max possible transfer rate of 150mb per second but then on the other hand which 2.5″ hard drives wil be capable to supply that speed to the interface anyway.
next up :
WiebeTech ToughTech XE mini Firewire 800/USB/eSATA Enclosure
This one has a similar port list as the OYEN drive and really just appears to be a more expensive alternative. having not got both physically to compare its difficult to tell but it seams they arrive at their port count in the same way firewire 400 is acheived by a firewire 800 to 400 cable converter and usb2.0 and esata are a combined port somehow etc.
next up
OWC Mercury On-The-Go:
FireWire 800/400 +USB 2.0 2.5″ Portable Case Kit for SATA 2.5″ Hard Drives:
this drives is a s good as the one above except it doesnt provide the esata port. but then on the other hand what the likelyness of getting 150mbps from a 1.5GBps esata port from a 2.5″ hard drive anyway ? well in theory thes new 2.5″ sata 3gbps drives are capable of exceeding 150MB transfer rates according to
this PDF on the hitachi site :
but id ont know of any enclosure that offers 3gbps capability from an esata port yet, so unless you can point me to an eclosure thats capable of it the i gues we better presume its not yet purchasable.
for 3.5″ form factor external drive preinstalled with a drive with lots of interfaces these look note worthy.
and this looks promising for an external 3.5″ dual disk raid enclosure with lots of ports.
Thank’s for sharing this
This is really interesting