• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

3.5" External Drive Bay...With No External DC Power

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

JrClocker

AKA: JrMiyagi
Joined
Sep 25, 2015
I'm looking at moving some of my internal mechanical drives to external.

I have been able to find MANY 2.5" external drive bays that are USB only (with no external power supply required.)

I have not been able to find any 3.5" that are USB only...they all require an external power supply.

I already have enough "stuff" plugged in AC wise, so I only want to do this for the 3.5" drives if I can run on USB only.

Has anybody ever seen a 3.5" external drive enclosure that is USB only? (Or is it because most 3.5" drives draw too much current?)

Thanks!
 
I dont have any recommendations for an enclosure, but I will say that eSATA might be a better bet than USB.

I have 2 x USB external enclosures. 1x IDE and 1 x SATA. Bother of them get terribly warm. Warm to the point where I set an ice pack on them (55C) to keep things cool. Also I have issues running larger drives (80GB works fine 320/500GB has issues) in Linux. For instance, the 320 will error upon formatting (SMART data is fine though) in Linux. Windows takes care of the 320 in an OK way. Everything that I have read tells me that Windows is just handles filesystems in a sloppier way, and that is why I have less issues in Windows.

I got a long lecture from a more experienced user that USB was causing these difficulties, and they were proven right because all drives worked fine when plugged into the SATA port on the mobo. eSATA will apparently overcome this issue as well. That is just my .02 Good luck, and please post back with what you happen to find because I am in the market for a reliable USB/eSATA external as well :)
 
I think you are correct that 3.5" drives are too power hungry for USB and if I remember right most run on 12v anyway so even if USB could handle the power draw it's the wrong voltage
 
I am using this right now for my DVD/Blu-Ray burner:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827993013

Works good so far...4 months and about 800 DVD/Blu-Ray ripped from my collection. I've also used this to clone hard drives with no problem (Windows only).


I am considering this for the 2.5" drive enclosure:

http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Exter...-4&keywords=2.5+external+hard+drive+enclosure

@knoober: I've been running a Toshiba 3 TB USB 3.0 drive for about 5 years now with no issues with regards to Windows...never heard of what you mentioned.

I just don't want to have to plug yet another AC adapter into my UPS...it's already a cable mess down there. I have a powered USB 3.0 hub, so I want to avoid adding AC adapters!
 
Back