Hard Drive Caddy

[SunsetZed]

Hi all,

I've got a couple of old internal hard drive that I'd like to extract info from but I now only have laptops so I was thinking that I could get a powered caddy for them. I saw a couple on ebay that I tohught would do the job but the responses I've had from the sellers are along the lines of, it'll work fine for the Samsung but it's 50:50 for the WD you'll need a branded one but we don't have any. Can anyone help with this?

HD's are:
Western Digital WD20EADS Caviar Green 2TB SATAII 32MB Cache 3.5 Inch Green Power Oem Internal Hard Drive
Samsung HD501LJ 500GB

Thanks.

[stemll]

If it's just to get data off and you don't want to keep on using them, get something like this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078GZG4ST?tag=duckduc...

IDE and SATA and power that any 3.5" drives will need. I have something similar and worked fine on every drive it's been used on (by me and others).

[megaphone]

As above I have a similar adaptor, good thing is it can be used for 3.5" and 2.5" drives , SATA and IDE.

I've also used Startech caddies, the 3.5" ones are a bit expensive, so unless you're going to use them for storage you may be better off with the adaptor.

[SunsetZed]

stemll said:

If it's just to get data off and you don't want to keep on using them, get something like this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078GZG4ST?tag=duckduc...

IDE and SATA and power that any 3.5" drives will need. I have something similar and worked fine on every drive it's been used on (by me and others).

megaphone said:

As above I have a similar adaptor, good thing is it can be used for 3.5" and 2.5" drives , SATA and IDE.

I've also used Startech caddies, the 3.5" ones are a bit expensive, so unless you're going to use them for storage you may be better off with the adaptor.

Thanks both, sorry I wasn't clear enough in my opening post. I guess I'd probably like the option to re-use them again in the future so a caddy to give a little protection would be better if possible.

[megaphone]

Then the Startech caddies work well, although I've used a few 'no brand' caddies and they've all worked ok. TBH I would worry about the 500GB HDD, get the info off it and leave it as a spare, the 2TB is worth using for back-up/storage.

I

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 22 April 10:33

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 22 April 10:34

[SunsetZed]

megaphone said:

Then the Startech caddies work well, although I've used a few 'no brand' caddies and they've all worked ok. TBH I would worry about the 500GB HDD, get the info off it and leave it as a spare, the 2TB is worth using for back-up/storage.

I

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 22 April 10:33

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 22 April 10:34

Thanks, I've just had a look at those and they look quite pricy (although I may have to suck that up), any chance that this may do the job for both? I'm wondering in light of what you're saying whether it's worth ordering one of these and hoping it will work with both, focussing on the Samsung and then seeing if it works and if it does ordering a second one.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-SATA-Hard-Dr...

[megaphone]

SunsetZed said:

megaphone said:

Then the Startech caddies work well, although I've used a few 'no brand' caddies and they've all worked ok. TBH I would worry about the 500GB HDD, get the info off it and leave it as a spare, the 2TB is worth using for back-up/storage.

I

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 22 April 10:33

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 22 April 10:34

Thanks, I've just had a look at those and they look quite pricy (although I may have to suck that up), any chance that this may do the job for both? I'm wondering in light of what you're saying whether it's worth ordering one of these and hoping it will work with both, focussing on the Samsung and then seeing if it works and if it does ordering a second one.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-SATA-Hard-Dr...

That looks like it's for a 2.5" drive, yours are full size 3.5" aren't they? I'd look at something like this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SATA-Aluminium-USB2-0-E...


The 3.5" caddies need an external power supply, they won't run straight off USB like the 2.5" drives will. Check the spec of anything you buy to make sure you're getting a PSU.

Also check it's from a UK source, I recently order something similar, turned out to be from China, took over two weeks to arrive.

[lastexile69]

I use a couple of these. Simple and not the boring black box type. No size limit on the drive used (I have used 10TB drive OK).

icy-box-ib-ac705-6g


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ICY-BOX-IB-AC705-6G-Ext...

[Zirconia]

If for long term, Icy Box and Silverstone here, though the Icy Box shipped with a PSU that was underpowered, sorted with the seller but they said it had come in from icy box that way.

Both easy to change drives. Both USB3. Though none too cheap but seen me through 2 to 4 TB upgrades no problem. Usually seagate.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-box-ib-366stu3...
https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=310...

Icy box not showing the external in the scan listing for some reason.

[Jessicus]

If you don't need the drives to be portable I'd be looking at a docking station rather than an enclosure - use these type a lot at work for wiping drives prior to destruction as well as cloning/backing up drives. Far less hassle than enclosures.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inateck-Drive-Docking-Sta...

[SunsetZed]

Thanks all for the feedback, that helps a lot.

Jessicus said:

If you don't need the drives to be portable I'd be looking at a docking station rather than an enclosure - use these type a lot at work for wiping drives prior to destruction as well as cloning/backing up drives. Far less hassle than enclosures.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inateck-Drive-Docking-Sta...

One question on this, why is this less hassle? To my simple mind putting a hard drive in and out versus having it protected in a case increases the chance of damaging the drive?

[Jessicus]

Your mileage may well vary - I find them easier to swap drives in and out (although to be fair I do have a lot of drives that I use) and the fact that you can swap drives in and out of the enclosures means that you don't end up buying multiple enclosures, which I have done previously as dismantling and swapping drives out of a caddy can be a bit of a pain. Inserting and removing drives takes only a few seconds and I've never experienced any issues with drive connectors. If you are using laptops a lot then in the future the clone functionality may also prove useful if you wish to increase the onboard storage - just take a bigger drive (probably SSD), remove existing drive from laptop and use the onboard cloning tool. This can save the effort of a reinstallation.

Again, different use cases for different people, but for roughly the same cost I prefer the docking option.

[SunsetZed]

Jessicus said:

Your mileage may well vary - I find them easier to swap drives in and out (although to be fair I do have a lot of drives that I use) and the fact that you can swap drives in and out of the enclosures means that you don't end up buying multiple enclosures, which I have done previously as dismantling and swapping drives out of a caddy can be a bit of a pain. Inserting and removing drives takes only a few seconds and I've never experienced any issues with drive connectors. If you are using laptops a lot then in the future the clone functionality may also prove useful if you wish to increase the onboard storage - just take a bigger drive (probably SSD), remove existing drive from laptop and use the onboard cloning tool. This can save the effort of a reinstallation.

Again, different use cases for different people, but for roughly the same cost I prefer the docking option.

Understood. I think that I may well take that option (along with hard drive cases) as I don't need the portability, thanks.

[alorotom]

SunsetZed said:

Thanks all for the feedback, that helps a lot.

Jessicus said:

If you don't need the drives to be portable I'd be looking at a docking station rather than an enclosure - use these type a lot at work for wiping drives prior to destruction as well as cloning/backing up drives. Far less hassle than enclosures.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inateck-Drive-Docking-Sta...

One question on this, why is this less hassle? To my simple mind putting a hard drive in and out versus having it protected in a case increases the chance of damaging the drive?

I have a single bay version of this and its great, hot swappable for if you have multiple bare drives that you are moving between, had it for a few years and gets rarely used but then is needed its a godsend

[SunsetZed]

Just to follow up on this the Inateck docking station arrived and I used it this morning and it worked perfectly.

Thanks all for the help.