Can I make these HDDs portable?

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mostlynoob

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Dec 29, 2016
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I'm a bit confused about hard drives in general and was hoping someone here could advise me.....

I was gifted two drives:

1) Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB: ST32000542AS
2) Samsung Spinpoint, Model #: ST2000LM003

I have been using them as external hard drives to back up my computer, connecting them to my Mac via a docking station. There have been multiple issues with this process and it has caused me nothing but stress and heartache. I want rid of this process for good, I want to dump the dock situation and move to a portable system.

Some of the issues: it's slow; sometimes my Mac doesn't read the drives (and sometimes that seems dependant on which USB port the dock is plugged into and sometimes it doesn't seem to matter at all - the drives just won't connect); and I recently moved my entire iTunes library from my computer to the Samsung drive but that was pointless because when I attempted to connect my iPhone to the computer to sync with iTunes, the dock and the drives ejected themselves automatically - I even tried to set up a sync via WIFI but the drive still automatically ejected itself.

:homer:

Questions:

1) Can I buy casings for these drives and will they then behave like normal portable EHDs?
2) If I can do this, would that help solve the ejection issues and improve the speed?

Many, many thanks in advance for any input or advice here.
 
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CountMike

CountMike

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Oct 31, 2015
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First one is 3.5" drive and requires own power supply but yes you can find connectors/adapters to make them portable. USB3 if available would be faster. Or you could use a universal docking station like one of these:
http://www.lc-power.com/en/product/zubehoer/hdd-docking-station/lc-dock-u3/
 
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M

mostlynoob

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Dec 29, 2016
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Would you clarify, please, 'USB3 if available would be faster'?
Do you mean some other completely different 3.0 USB external hard drive?

I have a docking station, granted it's inexpensive, and there are multiple issues with that process (I listed some of them in my post) so was hoping to move away from the dock and that would then improve speed and connectivity issues........
 
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CountMike

CountMike

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Oct 31, 2015
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No, not whole drive just USB adapter. One for each drive or a combined one like that one which is not giving me any problems.
There are some with USB2 and/or USB3 but also with eSATA which is even faster. It all depends what connectors your computer has. Usb2 and 3 are compatible with each other but speed will be of a slower one if they are mixed.
 
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mostlynoob

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Dec 29, 2016
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I see. If I understand correctly the speed is in the adapters....
I'm not super impressed with the docking station I have, so a bit trepidatious about trying others (though I'm sure anything else is probably better than the one I have)..... Think I'll try and get some USB3 adapters and see if these guys will play ball...
 
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CountMike

CountMike

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Oct 31, 2015
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The speed is always the speed of slowest link. USB2 can cope with slower HDDs but for faster ones it would be a bottleneck. USB3 is faster (3.1 even faster, 3.1 second gen still faster)) and can cope with fastest HDDs and some SSDs without a bottleneck.
There's other factors that can also slow transfer speed down, like overly aggressive AVs for instance.
 
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M

mostlynoob

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Dec 29, 2016
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Hopefully I'm finally catching on. There's info on the USB cables - maybe that'd be useful.

I have a Bauhn dual hard drive dock station with a USB 3.0 cable.
The cable reads 30V. Does that indicate its level of aggressiveness?

My iMac has 6 USB 2.0 ports.

Does this mean that I should purchase 2.0 cables for the casings of these HDDs when I attempt to make them portable?
And if that's the case, I could have speed issues even if I were to purchase brand new EHDs because most of them now come with 3.0 cables and usually are of a minimum 1TB.

I have two older EHDs, 320GB and 160GB, with high-speed USB 2.0 cables, and they can be connected to the iMac along with the iPhone SE and I don't have the connection issues I have with the dock station. Is that because those drives are smaller and the 2.0 is connecting to 2.0?



 
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