Sata Drive

USB Cases, USB Caddy or USB Enclosures - create your own back up solution

Its easy to create your own Data Back Up solution from any old or new Hard Disks Drive

There are lots of reason why you might want to create an external back up solution using a Caddy:

• Perhaps you want to increase the amount of storage over and above that available to you on your PC
• If you have an salvaged Hard Drive from an old Laptop or PC then you can put it to good use in a Hard Disk Drive Enclosure (often referred to as a "caddy" - the caddy allows you to retreive data from the Hard Disk but also to continue using the Hard Drive as an external storage option
• An external drive ensures peace of mind because you can easily back-up those all important files, photo's and music collections
• Less clutter on your main disk = greater speed. If your current Hard Drive (typically Drive C:) is already close to capacity then its worth connecting up an external drive and transfering off some of the data - this (after a quick defrag of your HDD) should then improve the performance of your PC.
• Cost - using an old Hard Disk Drive recovered from a PC together with a Hard Drive Enclosure is a really cost effective way to build your own back up storage solution. The small 2.5" caddy's typically come with good quality carry cases so you can take them with you.

USBNow have a wide range of Hard Disk Drive solutions for 2.5" Hard Drives (typically used in laptops), 3.5" Hard Drives (typically used in Desktops and Towers) and they  have Hard Drive Enclosures that work with the older style IDE hardrives and the newer (faster) Serial-ATA (SATA) Drives.

When you are using the Caddy's there are a few tips to remember:

1. IDE Hard Drives need the jumper settings set to "master" for the Hard Drive to be recognised (only applies to 3.5" Hard Drives becuase there are no jumper settings to worry about on the smaller 2.5" Hard Drives
2. If you are using a new Hard Drive then you will need to format and allocate the HardDrive first - this is easy to do by using the "Disk Management" tools on your PC (when the Hard Drive is installed in the Hard Disk Enclosure and Connected to the PC go to Disk Management and follow the fomat wizard)
3. The smaller 2.5" Hard Disk Enclosures don't require (and are not typically shipped with) and external power supply but it is common for them to be supplied with a USB "Y" cable that allows you to draw 500ma of power from 2 seperate USB ports to spin the Hard Drive

Q&A: How To Connect A SATA Drive To An IDE Computer?