Frame/Carrier-based Hard Drives

[SimpleSymon]

What do you all think about these removable HDD? Pros? Cons? I'm looking into buying my first home PC, and want one with dual-HD for dual-boot OS. I'm now considering PC with one regular/internal HD & one frame/carrier-based HD. Good idea? Bad idea? Also, can anyone give me a link to in-depth info, reviews, etc., on these hard drives? Google search has not been very generous!

 

[hang-the-9]

Nothing wrong with removable drive caddies, but unless you really need to move drives between systems or are swapping out lots of test builds, no need to add the complexity. Just another thing to break. You may want to get an external USB or esata drive for data backup though.

 

[SimpleSymon]

Nothing wrong with removable drive caddies, but unless you really need to move drives between systems or are swapping out lots of test builds, no need to add the complexity. Just another thing to break. You may want to get an external USB or esata drive for data backup though.

Thanks for your answer. Do the frame/carrier-based hard drives have a rep for easy breakage? Not been able to find much about them, so still 'on-the-fence' between 2 internal HDDs, or one internal & one removable. I'm looking to have two OS (XP Pro SP2 & Linux) but I'm also drawn to BeOS Haiku. I figured two or more removable HD would let me play around with BeOS, and test out a couple of Linux distros too. Also, if one OS goes belly-up, I could pull it, send it to Techomage to deal with, and plug in another in the interim.
Don't know anything about esata (just now finding out about SATA), but I had planned for USB external drive for periodic back-ups....that is any back-up that can't be done to DVD or CD.

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks for your answer. Do the frame/carrier-based hard drives have a rep for easy breakage? Not been able to find much about them, so still 'on-the-fence' between 2 internal HDDs, or one internal & one removable. I'm looking to have two OS (XP Pro SP2 & Linux) but I'm also drawn to BeOS Haiku. I figured two or more removable HD would let me play around with BeOS, and test out a couple of Linux distros too. Also, if one OS goes belly-up, I could pull it, send it to Techomage to deal with, and plug in another in the interim.
Don't know anything about esata (just now finding out about SATA), but I had planned for USB external drive for periodic back-ups....that is any back-up that can't be done to DVD or CD.

I would not say that they have a reputation for breaking, but soon as you add 2 more interfaces between the drive connectors and that they are possibly moved around, greater chance of breakage. If you only see yourself taking out a drive once a year, go with regular drives, and get a good case with easy drive access/removal. I like the ones where the drive cage is tilted 90 degrees and is facing out towards the case door instead of facing into the case.

See 3rd image on this review.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1294/4/

esata is just external sata connection, it will be faster than any USB, except maybe USB3 which I have not worked with so can't fully comment on it. If you buy an external drive and PC, just make sure the motherboard has an esata connector and so does the drive.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=esata&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=_Cg3TOOMMYH6lwe08pXWBw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CEMQsAQwAw

 

[rrspikemarty]

Thanks for your answer. Do the frame/carrier-based hard drives have a rep for easy breakage? Not been able to find much about them, so still 'on-the-fence' between 2 internal HDDs, or one internal & one removable. I'm looking to have two OS (XP Pro SP2 & Linux) but I'm also drawn to BeOS Haiku. I figured two or more removable HD would let me play around with BeOS, and test out a couple of Linux distros too. Also, if one OS goes belly-up, I could pull it, send it to Techomage to deal with, and plug in another in the interim.
Don't know anything about esata (just now finding out about SATA), but I had planned for USB external drive for periodic back-ups....that is any back-up that can't be done to DVD or CD.

vantec, cru, masscool, kingwin, startech, Ultra, istarusa, and others all have a line of removable 'internal' hard drive frames and carriers.

 

[fzabkar]

FWIW, I have had three PATA HDD caddies over the years and two have failed with connection problems. More importantly, there appears to be no standard governing the connector pinout. In my case, I have two brands of caddy, and they are not pin compatible. Fortunately I took some measurements before attempting to interchange them. Had I not done so, then I probably would have caused some serious damage.