swoon777@yahoo.com wrote:
Multidrive enclosures tend to be more expensive.
Since a small business is more likely to buy them,
the enclosures are priced with big wallets in mind.
Single drive USB enclosures are dirt cheap, with
quality to match. Many of them don't have fans,
and I personally only use enclosures with fans, as
I don't believe a dirt cheap enclosure can do a
good job of dissipating the heat.
You can get raw IDE to USB2 adapters, many of which
come with a power supply that provides +5V and +12V
for the drive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc... +ide+adapter
The power supply is the smaller plug shown on the
box here, and the IDE ribbon to USB2 adapter is the
bigger blob connected to the back of the drive.
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggIma...156-101-08.jpg
Using kits like that, you could always throw together
your own enclosure, and fit it with fans and the like.
Put a USB2 hub inside the box, to gather all the
USB interfaces together, then run one USB cable out the
back, to your main computer.
You could even consider using a cheap ATX computer case,
as a way to hold the drives. The case would give you a
way to hold one or more fans to cool the box. Some ATX
computer cases start at around the $20 mark. You would
need to put a piece of sheet metal, over the hole where
the PSU goes, if you want the intake air to flow over
the drives mounted in the front of the case. All your
AC adapters could sit inside the case, with a power
strip or something to plug them into.
Note that different adapters exist for 2.5" laptop
drives versus 3.5" ribbon cable IDE drives versus 3.5"
SATA drives and so on. Make sure you are buying the
right kind of adapter. Buy one adapter and test it first,
before buying a half dozen to finish the project. Read
the reviews on Newegg, to spot the bad ones.
A good adapter will do about 35MB/sec transfer rate.
Many of the others will only do 20MB/sec. That is only
important if you plan on doing large bulk transfers.
For casual use, they should be OK.
Paul
