external enclosures

[billtmore]

Does anyone have some thoughts on external cases for HD and cd burner... My son wants to be able to access a CD Burner from his notebook and I was also thinking he could use an external HD as well. Pricewatch has enclosures for as little as 16.00. He has the internal HD and burner with him at college so I was thinking I could just by a 3.5 and 2.5 enclosure but i am not familiar enough with what I should make sure they have other than a usb connector. Is it really that simple to take an internal component put it in an enclosure and then be able to access it externally??? thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions!

 

[Biggs]

Make sure it uses at least USB 1.1(USB 2.0 if possible), unless, you like long wait times. It is relatively easy to set-up -- just pop the drive in, turn on the external drive enclosure power switch, install the driver for your OS(if needed) and that's basically it.

 

[Drakkon]

I have one of those "generic" usb 5.25 enclosures...with windows XP it detects automatically at usb 1.1 needs drivers to run a 2.0....but it works great...put whatever i want in there thats ATA 33/66/100 and it will use it just like its a drive in my system just a little bit slower.
I'd suggest looking around at i think they are the maddog external CDRW drives....there actually just internal CDRW drives in the "generic" enclosure...kill two birds with one stone just takes a little inguinuity to get em apart but they work...

 

[GnomeCop]

whatever you do, DO NOT go cheap on the enclosure... you will regret it. Why would you trust to put a $80-$100 HD in a $16 enclosure?

Get a well built/good chipset enclosure that fits your needs, its worth it.

 

[xizor]

I have a dvd+/-rw in a 5.25" usb2/firewire enclosure. I would not suggest using an external hard drive or writer that uses usb1.1, it'll be way too slow. Most laptops have firewire, while only newer ones have usb2.0. Setup is very easy, and pretty much any drive will work in it.

 

[dnuggett]

What brand/model is your son's laptop?

 

[billtmore]

He has the Compaq evo n1015V does not have firewire but i did get him a 2.0 usb pcmcia card...he took a couple of internal HD with him. Tonight I picked up a 2.0 Usb Pac Dig burner at Cusa for 49 so that takes care of that...so now it is on to the HD enclosure. Thanks alot guys!

 

[dnuggett]

Ok sounds good. I wantd to know to advise you of the PC Card option. You are already aware of that though...