It's cheap and easy to make your own portable hard drive from an old PC drive
Enclosure types
Prep work
MARCO CHIAPPETTA
Most external drive enclosures include a rigid shell and a small circuit board, which is essentially a SATA to USB bridge adapter.
There are a few things to consider before installing your drive into an external enclosure. If the drive is encrypted, for example, you may want to re-connect it to the original system to access it and back up any important data on the drive. Even if the drive is not encrypted, it’s probably a good idea to back everything up beforehand.
On very rare occasions, compatibility issues may prevent you from accessing a drive installed into an external enclosure without re-formatting it. Most of the external enclosures available today, however, feature mature technology and are fairly reliable. Regardless, it couldn’t hurt to back things up—just in case.
The assembly process
Installing a drive into an external enclosure is usually very easy. For the purposes of this article, I picked up a Kingwin ATK-25U3-BK USB 3.0 enclosure on NewEgg for about $27, but the assembly process should be similar for all hard drive enclosures.
MARCO CHIAPPETTA
Assembling the Kingwin ATK-25U3-BK couldn’t be any easier. The drive plugs right into the included circuit board, then slides right into the housing, and four tiny screws hold it all together.
The Kingwin ATK-25U3-BK includes all of the cables necessary to connect it to a PC, along with a simple carrying case. Installing a drive into the enclosure required only one tool—a small Phillips-head screwdriver. I had to remove four small screws from each corner of the enclosure and slide out a small circuit board (the section with the connectors attached).
The circuit board features a bridge that converts the SATA interface to USB 3.0. There’s also a thin, transparent protective shield that protects the bottom of the drive being installed, which is where a 2.5-inch hard drive’s controller board is typically exposed. The drive slides right onto the small circuit board; simply line up the male/female SATA data and power connectors and push them together.
Once the drive is connected to the converter board, the whole assembly slides into the enclosure. Tighten the screws that hold the enclosure together, and it's ready to go.
MARCO CHIAPPETTA
After stationing your hard drive in the enclosure, all you’ve got left to do is plug it into an available USB port on your PC. Easy!
To use your new external drive, all you should have to do is plug it into an available USB port on your PC. Some enclosures will include two USB cables (as ours did)—one for data and the other for supplemental power. If the enclosure you choose requires two cables, connect them both to ensure reliable operation. Many drives will work with just the single data cable attached, because it can provide some power. Under load, however, a single USB port may not be able to provide enough juice, and the drive could drop from the system.
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