DIY External Hard Drive

Just curious: has anyone else heard of do-it-yourself external hard drives? I saw an article about making them in Popular Mechanics, and I'm seriously interested in doing it. Much cheaper than buying a ready-made one.

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Define a DIY hardrive. Does that mean making the drive itself on your own? Cause that would a)be more expensive, and be pretty dumb. If you simply mean taking a drive and making the external case yourself, then whether or not it is cheaper depends on what you want your external hard drive to be able to do. The more advanced, the closer the price is to a premade, because remember, premades are essentially DIY by someone else in bulk.

~Viz

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Yeah, I've seen loads of these, both DIY types & premade, and there are tons of different features available too.

The most basic would be:
1. DIY drill/tap acrylic to mount HDD from underneath
2. mount rear sockets with cheap IDE to USB (or eSATA)

More common/advanced would allow both internal (p/s-ATA cage) & external (USB or eSATA) mounting.

Most advanced ones have autonomous RAID1 backup etc .. but I can't see the point of those, much!

There are also ext cases for 2.5" laptop drives with tiny USB & power interfaces ... had a sturdy metal case too. Not sure if it's that easy to DIY when you get to smaller drives.

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If you log onto ebay, you'll find a bunch of hard drive cases (even for laptop drives). The regular sized ones are really cheap, and the laptop cases are just a Dollar or two more expensive.

In most instances, you'll find the cases are manufactured with a USB interface so all you have to do is get yourself a HDD (again, by logging onto eBay, you can get yourself a really good deal); and, insert the HDD into the case, put in the 3-4 screws (depends on the type of case you get yourself) and you're done.

It's all plug and play so, with Windows and Linux identifying and installing the drives automatically, you're ready to roll as soon as you have your pieces in place.

If you get yourself an external case for a laptop HDD then you can manage a good 120 to 250 GB drive in the case and it'll be as big as your palm (and i've got a small palm) and as thick as a finger.

Oh yes...!! while you're on eBay, also look out for a USB cable that has two male jacks on one end, so if you get yourself an HDD that has a high RPM then you'll need the second jack to plug in to draw more power from your computer.

Here in India, it's a big hit, and most professionals are walking about with an external HDD in their pockets. I'm looking out for a good deal myself on a DIY kit.

All the very best....

 

 

 

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Yup, that's what I mean. You just need to buy a case for the hard drive, adn hey usually come with USB and power outlets, although some smaller laptop drives can draw power from the USB connection.

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