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Did I do this right?

SteveRichardson

SteveRichardson

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 26, 2006
134
0
A couple days ago I purchased a Seagate 320gb Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140) and an i-rocks IR-9300-SL 3.5'' USB2.0 External Enclosure (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817250003).

Will the hard drive I purchased work in the enclosure? I have no idea what the difference is between SATA, UltraATA, PATA etc., but I tried really hard to get what would be compatable...Could someone verify?

I spent under $130 shipped for this combo. Good deal? Bad deal?

thanks. :)
 
The encosure simply claims "IDE" support which I will take to be PATA of some sort (most likely UltraATA100/133). This will not work with a SATA drive.

To use a SATA drive your enclosure MUST support SATA.
 
robbieduncan said:
To use a SATA drive your enclosure MUST support SATA.
Click to expand...

I pretty much looked at all the 3.5'' USB 2.0 exclosures on Newegg.com though and they all said the same thing.

What am I looking for here?
 
SteveRichardson said:
I pretty much looked at all the 3.5'' USB 2.0 exclosures on Newegg.com though and they all said the same thing.

What am I looking for here?
Click to expand...

The word SATA. I don't use Newegg (I'm not in the US) so you'll have to find someone who does.

If you were in the UK I'd recommend something off this list none of which support FireWire. Perhaps SATA->Firewire bridges are expensive at the moment?
 
alright I'll do a search for them sometime on my break ;)

then I'll need to check out Newegg.com's return policy...

The sata compatable exclosures aren't like totally more expensive are they? because I had a choice b/w ATA and SATA, but the SATA was $5 cheaper haha.

Thanks so much for your help! :)
 
SteveRichardson said:
Will the hard drive I purchased work in the enclosure? I have no idea what the difference is between SATA, UltraATA, PATA etc., but I tried really hard to get what would be compatable...Could someone verify?

I spent under $130 shipped for this combo. Good deal? Bad deal?

thanks. :)
Click to expand...

Any of these will work:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

(Selected "SATA" as the internal interface and USB as the external interface from the drop down lists after navigating to external enclosures.)
 
SteveRichardson said:
The sata compatable exclosures aren't like totally more expensive are they?
Click to expand...

It would appear (thanks to mrichmon our newegg expert) that yes, they are like, totally way more expensive!
 
robbieduncan said:
It would appear (thanks to mrichmon our newegg expert) that yes, they are like, totally way more expensive!
Click to expand...

psh those aren't bad at all.

The cheapo IDE's all got really bad ratings.
 
robbieduncan said:
It would appear (thanks to mrichmon our newegg expert) that yes, they are like, totally way more expensive!
Click to expand...

Never ordered from NewEgg... just aware that their web site allows filtering on useful information in most categories.

For what it's worth, I've always purchased my enclosures from OWC and never had a problem with any of the OWC enclosures.

I'd second the comment by another poster that going for the cheapest enclosure is an excellent way to run into problems. The cheaper enclosures usually use bridge chipsets that are not stable and often lead to compatibility problems.
 
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