A question about external hard drive enclosures

[Philmar]

Recently I upgraded my pc and as a result I upgraded all my external backup drives to USB 3.0 drives. As a result I have an old 1 TB USB 2.0 external collecting dust that I want to give to the wife. She also has an old USB 2.0 external drive so I thought for fun I’d remove my old external drive from its housing and slap it in a cheap USB 3.0 drive enclosure to give her a faster backup as she has a couple of available USB 3.0 ports on her computer. Having never done this before I was somewhat set back by the myriad of options available for me when looking at drive enclosures.
I know my old drive is a 3.5” drive and that I seek an enclosure with an external interface of USB 3.0. But the enclosures vary depending on the internal interface. I’m not sure if I am to pick an eSATA, SATA or SATA1-3 internal interface.
This is the old drive I am prying open:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136299
Does anyone know what enclosure internal interface I require? And will this old WD Elements drive also work on a USB 3.0 docking station?

[Hans Kruse]

If your wife is doing incremental backups like e.g. Timemachine on the Mac, I would say that it's really not that worth while except for the initial backup. Usually a backup is only a few GB which does not take long on USB 2.0 either. Hardly worth the effort

[Steve Weldon]

Chances are a new USB3.0 interface isn't going to make your old 3.5 drives any faster unless you go to a RAID enclosure and run them in RAID0 which isn't recommended.  I'd say leave things are they are or upgrade the entire solution at the same time.

[Philmar]

Thanks for the replies. i'm not o worried if the performance gains are minimal. This is really just a make work project. I have a drive collecting dust so I want to play with it. I want to see for myself it it runs any faster than her own USB 2 drive. If not, she has another drive to play with.  It's cold here in Toronto and I want a project. It's either that or she'll make me go release a shed door that has become jammed from ice. And we have no need to go in the shed so  i'd rather hack my old drive.

[tastar]

This Vantec enclosure should be more than good enough. It will support a SATA drive, and has both eSATA and USB 3.0 external ports. It's available on Amazon and newegg.com. Unfortunately, unless you lie to your wife, putting a drive in this enclosure is probably a 10 minute project.

Tony

[Steve Weldon]

Thanks for the replies. i'm not o worried if the performance gains are minimal. This is really just a make work project. I have a drive collecting dust so I want to play with it. I want to see for myself it it runs any faster than her own USB 2 drive. If not, she has another drive to play with.  It's cold here in Toronto and I want a project. It's either that or she'll make me go release a shed door that has become jammed from ice. And we have no need to go in the shed so  i'd rather hack my old drive.

Fair enough, but know the drives are probably old enough to not be something you'd want to trust with your data in any form.  But, I can certainly understand the need for a project, I'm in the mid west and climbing the walls.  In fact, leaving for a professional class on Wednesday and will get a few more in this winter.. k]

Consider a docking station or even a single USB 2.03.0 adapter.  Takes up less room in the junk drawer later..

[Philmar]

Thanks for the suggestion. just so i understand is my old drive a SATA drive?
By the way I can always drag out the project with a fictitious drawn out search for Windows 8.1 drivers - she won't know what i'm doing.

[Philmar]

Fair enough, but know the drives are probably old enough to not be something you'd want to trust with your data in any form. ]

Consider a docking station or even a single USB 2.03.0 adapter.  Takes up less room in the junk drawer later..

Actually that is a very good point. I didn't consider that. I've NEVER had a hard drive failure (internal or external) and I've owned a few 5 HD rigs. Drive failure often is overlooked by me though I do backup. Giving the wife an older drive for backup might get me exiled to the shed if the perfect storm strikes.

[Steve House]

Actually that is a very good point. I didn't consider that. I've NEVER had a hard drive failure (internal or external) and I've owned a few 5 HD rigs. Drive failure often is overlooked by me though I do backup. Giving the wife an older drive for backup might get me exiled to the shed if the perfect storm strikes.

There are two categories of computer users in the world: those who have had a hard drive fail and those who are going to have a hard drive fail.

[Philmar]

There are two categories of computer users in the world: those who have had a hard drive fail and those who are going to have a hard drive fail.

That's true. now that I think about it I did have a corrupted RAW file on a memory card once. 

[Philmar]

Chances are a new USB3.0 interface isn't going to make your old 3.5 drives any faster unless you go to a RAID enclosure and run them in RAID0 which isn't recommended. 

Why is that? is it because the read and write speeds of these drives is slwer than USB2 throughput?

(not sure if i created new words or used old ones improperly)

[Steve Weldon]

Why is that? is it because the read and write speeds of these drives is slwer than USB2 throughput?

(not sure if i created new words or used old ones improperly)

Exactly.  Older drives run at 50-60mbps, well within USB2 specs.