Types of Drive Enclosures and Its Use

by Martin Peels Content Writer

A drive enclosure refers to a casing that is a specifically-designed cover box that holds a hard drive or functions to cover a hard disk drive. A disk enclosure can be externally connected to a computer system that allows communication with one or more devices or computers simultaneously.

When computers come with 40-80 GB of disk space, which may be insufficient for many users as their storage requirements seem to increase with the quality of work. However, this does not necessarily mean that you need to change your old computer. Users who need additional space can choose to expand their computer memory by buying an external hard drive. However, choosing the right enclosure for your hard drive can be quite tricky if you don’t have exposure to various computer parts. SATA disk enclosures can provide the additional storage needed for a device including power supply and data supply at the same time.

Different enclosures are readily available in the market, no matter the configuration type. Different drives have different enclosures, so it is important that you check the internal hard disk in order to buy a compatible hard disk enclosure.

What If You Have An Internal Drive?

If you are using a tower computer to store your archive, it is likely that you will have space, one or more bays inside the computer that can hold a new drive. The advantage of using an internal drive is that they are the cheapest ways to add storage and they take up the least amount of room when it comes to space. However, one drawback is that they are not easy to swap out when it comes to using them as an external drive; these require some modifications whether it is a SATA drive enclosure, SSD enclosure, or mSATA.

Adding An External Closure Is An Easy Way To Add Storage

If in your computer you don’t have an empty drive space or you don’t want to install a new internal drive, it is very easy to install an external drive, whether you are using SATA, mSATA, USB, Thunderbolt, or a FireWire connection. With an external drive, you have some sort of protection in place and have the advantages of being easily portable and not increasing the demand on your computer’s cooling system.

Ready-made units of external drives are available in the market and online. These devices are one of the quickest and economical ways to add storage to your systems without bothering much. Before buying check the warranty time, read the reviews, and buy from a reputable vendor.

Determine What Kind of Hard-Drive You Have

To determine the type you need to have an enclosure that is compatible with the drive in the computer which can be SATA, PATA, IDE, SAS, or Fibre channel as well. Moreover, the enclosure has one or more external interfaces as well, which means that the external interface determines how the drive enclosure connects to the computer. Though, it is important to understand that most external hard drives connect to your computer through the USB. Your choice will probably be determined by the type of ports you have and the type of PC you are running.

Applications of Drive Enclosures

● If an external hard drive has stopped work, there are chances of retrieving the data. In some cases, the hard drive enclosures fail, and not the actual hard drive; so changing the case can actually help and the data will be fine.

● The drive enclosures can be easily connected to digital multimedia recorders and video game systems.

● It gives additional storage and media types to small form factors and laptops. As well as allows non-networked computers to transfer data from one computer to another easily.

● These dramatically reduce the cooling requirements by preventing the heat from a disk drive from increasing the heat inside an operating system.

● They add a removable backup capability source with a separate power supply source from the connected computer.