Hard Drive Enclosure: After someone posted about hard drive enclosures, I got to looking on Amazon and ordered one that looked good. Unfortunately, it turned out to be for internal...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

After someone posted about hard drive enclosures, I got to looking on Amazon and ordered one that looked good. Unfortunately, it turned out to be for internal use, so I'm returning it. Instead, I ordered another one that is definitely external. I have half a dozen hard drives that I either bought or took out of old computers. It would be nice to have instant access to them without inserting them into the front slot on the computer or using an temporary enclosure. It should arrive on Tuesday, and I'll let you know how it works.

One big advantage of Amazon is their easy returns. UPS will pick it at my house. One thing I don't like is their search feature. When looking for a particular item, I usually get items that are not quite what I want - like an internal enclosure.

Internal enclosure -
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HE4YAFU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

External enclosure -
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XKWNJSB/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

nimbushopper Loc: Tampa, FL

Yes, I get that all the time with Amazon searches. Items show up that have nothing to do with what you searched for.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

nimbushopper wrote:

Yes, I get that all the time with Amazon searches. Items show up that have nothing to do with what you searched for.

The worst is when I search starting with the lowest price. I get pages of results that aren't related at all. I often search by ratings, but some products have mostly bad ratings. When one-star and five-star have the same number of listings, I look for something else.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

jerryc41 wrote:

The worst is when I search starting with the lowest price. I get pages of results that aren't related at all. I often search by ratings, but some products have mostly bad ratings. When one-star and five-star have the same number of listings, I look for something else.

Another thing to look for is one that don't require formatting the drives

Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast

Manglesphoto wrote:

Another thing to look for is one that don't require formatting the drives

Why would a specific drive enclosure require you to format the drives? That's nonsense.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Pegasus wrote:

Why would a specific drive enclosure require you to format the drives? That's nonsense.

not really I have two different enclosures that require the drive to be formatted when first inserted. I don't know why. but they are quite old.
May I ask why your knickers always to be in a wad.
I get the idea your a sexual intellectual .

Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast

Manglesphoto wrote:

not really I have two different enclosures that require the drive to be formatted when first inserted. I don't know why. but they are quite old.
May I ask why your knickers always to be in a wad.
I get the idea your a sexual intellectual .

I just get tired of you providing bad or outdated information. It would be "a good thing" if you just stopped commenting on stuff you know nothing about. I realize this would mean just about everything at this site, but it is what it is.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Pegasus wrote:

I just get tired of you providing bad or outdated information. It would be "a good thing" if you just stopped commenting on stuff you know nothing about. I realize this would mean just about everything at this site, but it is what it is.

Yep I was right

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Pegasus wrote:

Why would a specific drive enclosure require you to format the drives? That's nonsense.

This isn't a "smart" box. It's just an enclosure. I don't remember if my Synology NAS asked me to format the drive, but it probably didn't.

"Well, we aren’t setting it up because DiskStation Manager set it up automatically in the background for you."
https://www.howtogeek.com/318018/how-to-set-up-and-get-started-with-your-synology-nas/

motorman Loc: greenville nc

i have several old drives connected via usb external enclosures found on this site.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/

Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast

jerryc41 wrote:

This isn't a "smart" box. It's just an enclosure. I don't remember if my Synology NAS asked me to format the drive, but it probably didn't.

"Well, we aren’t setting it up because DiskStation Manager set it up automatically in the background for you."
https://www.howtogeek.com/318018/how-to-set-up-and-get-started-with-your-synology-nas/

The Yottamaster to which you linked specifies that it's for 3.5" SATA drives. As long as these drives did not come out of laptop (2.5" drives) and are of fairly recent vintage (ie SATA drives,) you should be fine. I did not see the word RAID in the description and specs so I suspect they will show up as independent drives on your system, all connected through that one USB cable, so there must be a USB hub built-in, which would also explain the Type A to B USB cable in the specs. On the other hand, one of the answers further down says it's a type A to C cable, so caveat emptor.

Does your computer have a type C USB connector?

I wanted to post the above earlier but there was too much interference from ignorants to get through.

Let us know how it works out and with what cable it does ship. I notice you got the 4 drive enclosure. That should provide a lot of storage. I'm tempted to build a RAID array with some of the old drives I have around here, but the SSDs are much more reliable compared to HDD.

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

I have a shelf full of dead hard drives and have often thought of removing the drives and selling the cases. They have connector stuff, ports, and circuir boards, but is old stuff like that compatible with new technology?

whitewolfowner

Jerry, be ware of cheap enclosures like the one you posted. When I was shopping for a multi enclosure for drives I found two important things to look for. The first was heat. Many of them do not control the heat well and heat is the first thing that will kill a hard drive; the unit must run cool and keep the drives cool. Doesn't make any sense to save a few bucks on an enclosure that holds multiple expensive drives and cuts their life in half or even worse. The second thing was the software it had, what it would do and how well was the customer support. I first bought a Synology but when their people couldn't get it to be properly recognized by the computer, I returned it and went with a Qnap.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

When I add a drive to my system, I'm looking for something reliable, so I stay away from all the cheap junk, and I suggest that all of you do the same. If the purpose of adding the extra drive was getting more space to store your photos you are best suited by getting something reliable. Reliable doesn't come by using a rag tag collection of drives you have lying around as their quality, length of service and future reliability are all unknown. If you insist on doing this, then at least re-format and/or initialize the drive in the new system. Not doing this is asking for disaster. All this is exactly why, in my world, I use Synology NAS devices with quality drives from known manufacturers and sources. Each of my drives is marked with date-in-service and initialized before use. Just this past week I added two 10TB Seagate IronWolf NAS hard drives to my system, in Raid 5. It took almost 4 days for the initialization process, but I am now confident in their use. Best of luck.

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

Who has a good handle on SSD storage stuff. Not the little cards but the big capacity devices. They worth replacing those rotating platter machines.