2.5" IDE HDD => USB 2.0 enclosure

Solouko

Solouko

Solouko

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Joined
12 Aug 2005
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595
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North wales near Rhyl
ok, i've just upgraded the sound system in my car! (still waiting on rear speakers) and i've installed a nice new MP3/WMA head unit. it'll play MP3/WMA CDs and CD-rs and even CD-RWs, it's got an ipod connectore so my friends can use their evil demonic little devices in my car annnnd most importantly of all it's got a USB port on it, so i can plug my USB pendrive or MP3 player into it and listen to songs from that.... but..

i have had a great idea of useing a usb HDD cady to store my music on, i have several 2.5" laptop HDDs lieing arround and they'd be great to use! but, i cant seem to find one that's sutable. =/ i need one that's powered from a single USB port, the one's i've found have led me to believe they're powered by 2 USB ports or they've not specified.

can somone please help me find a 2.5" laptop enclosure that is powered by a single USB connector? i also need it to act like a USB pen drive would, i'm pretty sure they all will as i even got a large 3.5" enclousure that runs off the mains to work in it, unfortunatly i dont have a 240V mains supply in my car so it's not that practical.

please help

Solouko
 
i'd like to ask you were you got it from but OcUK wouldnt alow it, on the forums that is, you can email me if you like =D

but OcUK already have some on the site, does anyone know if any of these are sutable? the integral one is the cheepest but the Icy Box ones look nice, possibly wortk it for the nice leatheret case. but are they suitable =/

Bear in mind it has to be powered from the same USB port that the data goes thru, it's really confusing the way they discribe the power supplies, it makes it sound like there are 2 USB ports required! which just sounds daft!
 
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check the capacity of the head unit .the one i have will only access up to 2 gb via usb or sd card :)
also you can use one of the 12v to 240v invertors to power mains caddies.they vary in price and wattage
 
some of the head units that support USB sticks don't supply enough voltage/watts for the external hard drive type mobile disks. some of the enclosures have two USB cables so that they can get enough power (the iomega one springs to mind)
 
Solouko said:
Bear in mind it has to be powered from the same USB port that the data goes thru, it's really confusing the way they discribe the power supplies, it makes it sound like there are 2 USB ports required! which just sounds daft!
Click to expand...

The reason it requires 2 usb ports is because a 2.5" hard drive has a peak current draw of around 700mA, but the USB specification only allows up to 500mA per port, so it needs the extra port to draw enough power. In the past though I've found it works using just one port, although this may not always be the case for all manufacturers.
 
I would also like to know the answer to this as i am thinking of doing the same but to use as external drive for a dvd recorder with only one usb port.
 
What is the current draw of the drive? It should be on the side. I just checked a spare drive I had lying around, and it says 1.6A at 5V, so it would need 4 ports to be powered by USB :o Although could possibly get away with using 3.

Also it depends on the motherboard, as some of them will quite happily provide over 500mA, and the same if you are using a powered USB hub.
 
Don't mean to hijack this thread but i am looking into getting a 2.5 drive for my dvd recorder. I have found the power specs below so what do i need from the recorder to power this?

Power Requirements Voltage +5V±5%
Spin Up Current (max.) 5.0W mA
Seek(typ.) 2.4 W
Read/Write On-Track (typ.) 2.4 W
Low Power Idle (typ.) 0.85 W
Standby (typ.) 0.25 W
Sleep (typ.) 0.1 W
 
You will need 2 USB ports to provide enough power, as the maximum power one port can provide is 0.5A at 5V = 2.5W, and your drive needs 5W to spin up.
 
Thanks fot that info Phnom_Penh .

Now i need a way to find out what power is used on my usb port,is there a simple way of finding this out as it doesn't show in the manual?
 
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