Possible to convert an internal harddrive for external use?

I originally purchased a separate second 250 GB (5400 rpm) from Dell for my refurbished XPS 1730 about four months ago which I have never used. I had so many problems with this notebook, that Dell has agreed to send me a new one with dual 320 GB hard drives (set at Raid 0).

I now have an extra internal harddrive that I have never used. Although I have never sold anything off ebay, I did check to see what a similar harddrive is selling for. It seems that the value is not very much and I think that I might be better off keeping it.

Anyway, here is my question. Can I convert this harddrive for external use (as a backup)? If so, what would I need to do in order to convert this?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards.

 

Yes, you can. All you need is an external enclosure that fits the hard drive and supports it's interface.

 

yeah just buy a 2.5" sata enclosure.

 

Thanks everyone for the help!

 

careful though, make sure you read the spec of the enclosure properly. Match the type of the interface (PATA or SATA), and also look at the maximum HDD capacity the enclosure can take (I bought an enclosure myself recently, and I've seen several cheaper one with limit like 120GB and 160GB - but the newest one take SATAII (320GB)

 

Thanks w_tanoto for the advice!

 

sata 2 has nothing to do with size..... it just supports a higher bandwidth - which is unnecessary since no hd can max sata 1 anyway.

 

you can find harddrive enclosures, which turn an internal to an external. Basic assembly is easy.

you can find them at radio shaq for 2.5" drives and almost any size at best buy.

 

yes, I know. sata 150 or sataII 300.

but some enclosure only take certain HDD capacity. the newest model that I just bought which will take all HDD capacity available happens to be SATA

 

No that's incorrect. Like jisaac mentioned, sata 150 or sata II 300 has nothing to do with hdd size, it's bandwidth.

 

yes, as I said, I know, it is the speed. I meant to say 150MB/s and 300MB/s, which is HARDLY capacity unit (in GB), and as I said, my enclosure happens to accept sata/sata2 HDD.

 

Yeah, but 2.5" notebook HDDs don't reach speeds anywhere close to SATA I 150MB/s. The fastest 7200RPM drive at the moment is around 85MB/s, and even an expensive and ultra fast mtron SSD tops off around 110MB/sec. So being SATA I or II is irrelevant to notebooks, and even more so to enclosures.

External enclosures are limited to the connection bandwidth ie; Firewire, USB or eSATA. The fastest is eSATA(which is essentially SATA) which isn't available to all notebooks. So your looking at USB 2.0 being the most common but also the slowest limited at 35MB/s, and Firewire 400 is limited to 50MB/s

 

yes. i am fully aware of usb's speed limit. it's only that my HDD is labeled as SATAII, and that my enclosure can accept HDD that is labeled as SATA/SATAII despite the actual speed by USB or any other interface such as ATA, etc. not sure about esata though. i largerly ignoring esata (my laptop has it, but can't be bothered to use interface that is not yet widely adopted). the older enclosures that i saw, i think it only accept PATA HDD or HDD labeled as SATA (which may accept SATAII as well - this one I am not sure), but HDD capacity is limited to 120-160GB

 

I give up. You don't seem to even make any sense with your comments. What are you talking about and what is your point?

Well, of course. Why would you put in anything else into the enclosure made for SATA/SATAII?

Um, it is widely adopted. It' s just not available on all notebooks, but eSATA is SATA, just used externally. It's 10x faster than USB.

SATA I or SATA II is backwards compatible to each other, the interface is exactly the same. There are SATA drives readily available right from 320GB right up to 500GB and it doesn't matter if it's SATA or SATA II.

 

lol perhaps what w tanoto means is that sata II being a relatively new standard, is more or less guaranteed to support larger hard drives. So by getting a sata II enclosure, you can be sure that your hd's full capacity will be recognised.

 

nope. not what I meant. I meant to say the enclosure that I picked up stated no limit to the HDD capacity, and would accept SATA/SATAII labeled HDD (no matter if it is irrelevant nowadays). The other enclosures available have limits of 120GB and 160GB.

I do not meant to say anything about the transfer speed, etc. but just want to say that the enclosure I got accept up to SATAII interface (no matter the actual speed is) (my 320GB HDD is labeled SATAII). From the beginning I am not arguing about the speed as it is obviously limited by the speed of USB.

hope that clarify things. otherwise I gave up.