Hard Disk Enclosure

[mis33]

I have a new HDD (WD-500GB, WD5000AAKS) doing nothing. I am thinking to buy a hard disk enclosure so I can use this as a external backup.

I checked a few online stores. While I saw many enclosures for 2.5" and 3.5" HDD, I did not see even one enclosure for 5.25" SATA drive with SATA connection (to the PC).

This is strange because I thought this would be a good idea.

 

[orangegator]

Desktop internal hard drives are 3.5", which is almost certainly what you have.

 

[badge]

I have a new HDD (WD-500GB, WD5000AAKS) doing nothing. I am thinking to buy a hard disk enclosure so I can use this as a external backup.

I checked a few online stores. While I saw many enclosures for 2.5" and 3.5" HDD, I did not see even one enclosure for 5.25" SATA drive with SATA connection (to the PC).

This is strange because I thought this would be a good idea.

This will work fine. 5.25" is the length of your drive, not the Sata 'interface'.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145167

 

[mis33]

I am confused. I just measured my WD5000AAKS, it's 5.75" x 4".

What do you mean this is a 3.5" drive?

 

[SomeJoe7777]

The measurement refers to the diameter of the spinning magnetic media associated with the storage device. In the old days, this is how the terms "5 1/4 floppy" and "3 1/2 floppy" were used, because the actual floppy disk inside was 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" in diameter.

Modern desktop hard drives (like your WD5000AAKS) still have spinning platters inside them that are 3.5" in diameter, hence it's called a 3.5" drive even though the external dimensions of the unit are bigger than that.

Today, a 5.25" device is a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, since the CD/DVD media is 5.25" in diameter.

So, you need an external enclosure for a 3.5" hard drive where the internal interface to the hard drive is SATA. The external interface from the unit to the computer will be USB, 1394, or eSATA. (And those are in order from slowest to fastest).

 

[mis33]

Yes, I remember the old days now. Thanks for the clarifications.

I checked, Antec MX-1 seems to be great but a bit pricy. I see there is a $20 rebate from Newegg but they don"t ship to Canada.