external drive cases

Are there any cases that are cheap, take an ide drive internally and
have it externally as an esata drive, possibly USB as well but thats
not too important with usb to esata adaptors costing what they do.

Looking to get several of them, but all esata cases just seem to be
sata drives in them, which is annoying to pay that much for since they
dont need any active electronics in them to convert the signal, so
paying such a large premium over a usb2 to ide seems stupid.

 

Do you want a cheap source of esata to Usb cases?
What do you want?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#External_SATA
Here, go look:
http://www.pricespy.co.nz/search.php?q=esata
..
Oh, none advertised. Maybe some phone calls might be needed.

 

Do you really need a cheap case? ie my experience has been that getting
such a combo is flaky....things like dodgy USB, over heating HD, cheap
fans becoming noisy and failing, PSU melting and dying.......

So I'd advise getting a ready made pack with e-sata and USB rolled into
one....

Something like this,

http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/4730cbd800fe091a2740c0a87f33067f/Product/View/XH1288

$219 for 320gig....yet a 320gig drive is $160....so the case is costing
you $60....I'm sure you can get it cheaper than DSE as well...

I have some of the earlier Seagate ext's and they have been great, after
bad experiences and I'd never go back to buying a "cheap" case....

regards

thing

 

Yep. I got a cheap-ish one and it's nuked the filesystem twice. I suspect it's a
dodgy power connecter, as it's not very secure. Once I could sort of deal with,
but twice - no way. Bit the bullet and bought a Seagate FreeAgent. Now I have a
250GB HD to use elsewhere

 

USB not essential, but it needs to take an ide drive and give me an
esata port on it. if it does usb as well, thats great, but not really a
big deal since a usb to esata cable is so cheap.

It seems that all the esata cases will only take a sata drive, I have a
pile of mid sized ide drives that have being pulled from workstations
that were being disposed of, and would like to use them.

 

Good cases -- i.e, solid, reliable interface, quiet fan (and don't even
think about doing without a fan) -- are not cheap. I'd recommend the AMS
Venus line (available from Ascent, for one), but unless you can find a way
to source them from one of the big US distributors, they'll cost you
plenty. If you can see yourself swapping drives in and out of a single case
(or two), this might be more workable -- AMS Venus enclosures make swapping
pretty easy.

 

Depending on what kind of Integrated Drive Electronics--if the drive is
SATA, I'm sure the connection should be quite straightforward. Other kinds
of IDE would be less so.