Build USB Drive Enclosures

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System builders whose customers need more disk space can build their own hard-disk enclosures using off-the-shelf parts and simple hand tools. This permits old drives to remain useful, since most drive enclosures currently available support only older PATA (parallel ATA) or EIDE (enhanced IDE) drives.

Building your own hard-disk enclosure can also let you house newer, faster SATA (serial ATA) drives. While enclosures are becoming available for SATA drives, I don't cover them in detail in this Recipe. But what I do discuss will provide guidance for working with the newer SATA enclosures, as the only real differences apply to the power and data connectors used to hook the drive into its enclosure. (For more background, see Directron.org's article, Parallel vs. Serial ATA.)

So if you've got 10 minutes to spare, a drive and suitable enclosure, and a couple of small hand tools, you can package up a USB or Firewire (IEEE 1394) external drive, serve your customers, and pocket $20 to $30 for your efforts.

With a little comparison shopping and a small amount of time and effort, you can build a USB drive enclosure for your customers or for your own use. Because you can usually save $20 or more as compared to the cost of a prefab unit, you can pocket the difference. (The amount usually goes up in proportion to the size of the drive.) This is also a great way to get continued use out of drives from retired PCs, or to take advantage of unused drives you may have in inventory.

Ingredients

External USB hard disk enclosures are set up to accommodate standard drives and configurations with ease. Any compatible hard disk will slide into the case. After that, all you'll have to do is plug in or mate-up a couple of connectors--one for power, the other for data--and screw in a few machine screws. With practice, I was able to assemble this project in less than eight minutes. Best of all, the only tools I needed were a Philips-head screwdriver, a paper clip and my fingers. Nor did I need any special expertise.

To install a hard disk into a suitable USB disk enclosure, all you'll need are the following components and tools:

• A USB hard disk enclosure that matches whatever type of drive you intend to install. Generally, this means a PATA or EIDE enclosure and drive, or a SATA enclosure and drive. For this recipe, I used a PATA enclosure, the AcomData HDDEXXU2E3 3.5-inch USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure. It was on sale for just under $29 at my local Fry's, and I've seen it online for about the same price.

  You can also find plenty of good enclosures online for about $20. These include Iomagic's 3.5-inch external USB 2.0 IDE Hard Drive Case (about $12); Sabrent's 3.5-inch USB2.0 IDE PATA HDD enclosure ($18); PC Loft's 3.5-inch SATA HDD Enclosure ($22); and CP Technologies' USB 2.0 PATA HDD Enclosure ($23). Whichever you choose, keep the installation guide handy. And of course, prices may vary.

• A compatible hard disk to install inside the enclosure. I chose a 200-GB ATA/100 (PATA) 7200-RPM Maxtor hard disk with 8 MB of cache. This was on sale at Fry's for just under $70, which is less than a 160-GB model in the same series from Maxtor goes for. You can also make good use of older drives or find good deals on newer ones. In general, I recommend 300 GB or larger, especially for SATA.
• A small Philips-head screwdriver. You'll use this for mounting the drive into the internal drive cage, and for fastening the drive cage inside the actual enclosure.
• A paper clip. You'll use this to remove the jumper from its default "slave drive" setting. This is needed to configure the drive you install into the enclosure as the "master" drive inside the enclosure. (For more, see "PATA Master and Slave Drives" below.)

• Needlenose pliers (optional). You may use a small pair of needlenose pliers to move the jumper block, if one is available.