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External Hard Drive Enclosure
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2017-05-21 at 10:35 PM UTCHas your PC ever "crashed" with your hard drive still in tact? Have you ever wanted to get something off of that hard drive? I have had a few cheap laptops crash on me in one way or another with the good hard drives. Sometimes I don't care what's on it; other times I need the stuff. So what do we do? Other than turning it into a slave drive in a tower PC, an external enclosure is a good solution.
I got this thing about 6 years ago off Amazon for $7.99. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JQNXZC/
I'm sure there are better or faster ones out there, but it's proven itself useful several times. Plug a hard drive into the thing, plug the USB cable into another PC, and you now have a new external hard drive. I have a few drives that I store out in the open, which probably isn't the best idea, that I swap back and forth within this enclosure. Outside of being able to get the data that I needed, it's served pretty well as having an external drive for backup and archival purposes.
What do you guys use for external drives? What about enclosures for old internal drives? Should I be worried about storing my old drives out in the open when not in use? I heard that the main thing is not to bump it while it is being used because bumping anything when it's spinning at 7200 rpm isn't a good idea if you care about the integrity of it. What else? -
2017-05-21 at 10:56 PM UTCi never store important data in a fixed, non recoverable location or anywhere other than in my physical control. in other words...not on a fixed hard drive or the cloud.
i also never have a single location for important data...as in i keep one storage unit (depending on what, depends on the size and type of drive, as in cheap portable HD's or more expensive SSD's...or both, depending on size and importance.
obviously the multiple terabytes of gay midget barnyard animal porn i have is stored on high-end SSDs in a bank vault in a country that doesnt have any digital treaties with the US. as in...NOT new zealand. traitorous faggots. -
2017-05-22 at 1:45 AM UTC
Originally posted by Ajax What do you guys use for external drives? What about enclosures for old internal drives? Should I be worried about storing my old drives out in the open when not in use? I heard that the main thing is not to bump it while it is being used because bumping anything when it's spinning at 7200 rpm isn't a good idea if you care about the integrity of it. What else?
modern drives typically have gravity or shock detectors that pull the reader out as soon as it detects either freefall or a bump - data currently being written could be corrupted since it was abruptly stopped but there's little risk of general damage.
I don't have all that much information I consider 'critical'; I have one of those ultra durable USB sticks (this) for that and also an encrypted micro-SD card I keep in a titanium pill case.
given that I work in IT I usually have a whole bunch of harddrives lying around; if you're switching them a lot I recommend a dock; they're more durable than a dedicated enclosure and easier to plug/unplug without taking it apart:
they don't tend to be any more expensive either. -
2017-05-22 at 5:18 AM UTCI have my critical documents and data on one of those GorillaDrive USB thumb drives. It's pretty durable and has held up against all of my field tests so far.
The main thing I use the external drive for is memories and shit that takes up a lot of space like pictures and videos (not porn). -
2017-05-22 at 5:31 AM UTCYeah, a hard drive you're not operating has an indefinite shelf life, no need to worry about it being damaged sitting around unplugged.
Protip for the cheap: most external hard drives are just a cheap commodity drive hooked up to a standard, removable, PnP SATA controller. If you open the case you can plug any drive in, so if for some reason the $10 or whatever a for-purpose drive enclosure costs is too much you can cannibalize an old external.
