External use for Internal SATA hard drives?

[Dennis Peacock]

Does anyone know of a reliable product that will allow me to use 2 internal 250 GB hard drives as a backup device via USB or like interface? Heck, it's 500 GB of storage that I'd like to use as a backup disk to push backups to.

Any suggestions or experiences to share?

[Rob Wachala Jr]

Hit up newegg.com or tigerdirect.com or google "sata to usb cable".

[Matt Meiser]

I've got a no name single USB one that works fine.

[Chuck Wintle]

Does anyone know of a reliable product that will allow me to use 2 internal 250 GB hard drives as a backup device via USB or like interface? Heck, it's 500 GB of storage that I'd like to use as a backup disk to push backups to.

Any suggestions or experiences to share?

the vantec enclosures work very well...

Vantec Nexstar CX 3.5IN SATA to USB 2.0 and eSATA External Hard Drive Enclosure

I have one of the vantec enclosures for extrenal backup.

[Eric DeSilva]

Does anyone know of a reliable product that will allow me to use 2 internal 250 GB hard drives as a backup device via USB or like interface? Heck, it's 500 GB of storage that I'd like to use as a backup disk to push backups to.

Any suggestions or experiences to share?

Run a search on Amazon or newegg for "SATA enclosure"--lots of people selling relatively cheap boxes to put internal drives in. Very easy to hook up.

[Dan Hintz]

Hard drive dock...

[Zach England]

I have an adapter in the back of my case that allows for SATA plug in. I have never found it useful, but it came with the case so I installed it anyway. It just fits in a card slot.

[Prashun Patel]

Personally, I think you should just get a new USB hard drive.

They're like $70-100 for a upwards of 250G storage. There are 2 advantages:

1) You won't have to mess with drivers and trying to install yr hd into a dock.

2) Newer, smaller USB drives can be powered through the USB port, which means fewer cords to wrestle with, which means yr more inclined to whip it out and back up regularly.

[Bryan Morgan]

Look for a device like a Thermaltake BlackX docking station. Just plug it in and stick your drive in it. No screws or anything. Some of them have a button for "one touch backup". There are enclosures too that work fine. eSATA connections you can just leave the bare drive hanging there but I don't recommend it. eSATA is way faster than USB of course.

[Dan Hintz]

My Rosewill USB/SATA docking station came free with purchase of my SATA drive from NewEgg (that deal is often on NewEgg, too)... it's great for doing backups of data, as I can hot swap a new drive in/out without any attachment.

[Steve Costa]

You can buy a tera byte of storage from Seagate or Wester Digital for approximately $130 to $150 at the office product stores. Probably cheaper other places. Can backup all of your computers running on a home / small network.

Steve

[Jerome Stanek]

I would look into a network storage box I got one and it is so nice to access the files from any computer at any time. I can go out to the shop and retrieve files on my control computer and not have to run back and forth.

[Shawn Pixley]

I'd second a external 1 TB drive. 100$ for a lot less hassle.

[Jason Roehl]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-155-_-Product

I have something similar to this (mine's made by Sabrent, but I couldn't find it just now on Newegg.com, which is where I think I got it). It may not be the IDEAL solution for using an internal HD as external storage, but it can do double duty, allowing you to fix the HD on another computer from a good one, or (as in my case) recover the data from the HD on a dead laptop.

[Larry Frank]

The Vantec docks work great for bare SATA drives. I have used them for backing up and making an image of my drives.