Using HDD'S from desktop on a laptop

lee20010 · 30 Dec 2011 at 12:51

I wasn't sure if this should be in the laptop section, or hard drives. But as I'm selling my rig, I'm keeping my hard drives as theres no point selling them for the sake of £30.

My question is, is there a sort of caddie I can put them in so I can turn them into external? So SATA > USB 2/3?

olivier renault · 30 Dec 2011 at 12:56

loads. But can't recommend a particular one.

examples.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Akasa Integral S 3.5" USB 3.0 Enclosure. £33.98
1 x Akasa Noir S 3.5" USB 3.0 Enclosure £28.99
1 x Sharkoon SATA QuickPort XT USB3.0 £23.99
Total : £96.86 (includes shipping : £8.25).

Hyburnate · 30 Dec 2011 at 12:56

Yeah but the speeds will be utter crap

lee20010 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:00

Hyburnate said:
Yeah but the speeds will be utter crap

whys that?

panyan · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:03

lee20010 said:
whys that?

you would need to buy a usb 3 caddy or else it will be limited by usb 2 bandwidth (30MB/s)

if you did get a usb 3 caddy the controller chips are usually very poor quality so the speed of transfer will get slow very quickly and the chip will get very hot

ed79 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:05

Speeds won't be crap. I use a 1 TB Seagate 5400rom in an external Icybox USB caddy. I get about 30MB/sec according to Windows when copying files. It does feel a bit slower than directly connected with SATA but not massively.

I might try a benchmark in a minute to see what the difference is.

lee20010 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:07

I gotta try find a £500 laptop with usb3 now lol

azibux1 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:09

I'm not 100% sure but if it is a SATA HDD and you have an eSATA port on your laptop (I know some Dell's do) then surely the speeds would be a lot better?

Someone confirm?

ed79 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:10

It depends what you are using the drives for. Surely it'll just be file storage as you aren't going to install software on them or you'll need them plugged in all the time and the laptop won;t be very portable then!

panyan · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:10

ed79 said:
Speeds won't be crap. I use a 1 TB Seagate 5400rom in an external Icybox USB caddy. I get about 30MB/sec according to Windows when copying files. It does feel a bit slower than directly connected with SATA but not massively.

I might try a benchmark in a minute to see what the difference is.

with green sata drives (i.e. slow ones) i get just over 100MB/s copying between drives, compare that to the 30MB/s that you are topping out at

if you are using decent drives that can be up to 150MB/s and ssd's are in the 3-500MB/s between drives

personally i think 30MB/s is too slow, but if the OP is fine with that then there isnt a problem

UnworthyBean · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:12

Speeds will be perfectly fine for a storage drive. Wouldn't reccomend running any games or windows off it though.

ed79 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:19

panyan said:
with green sata drives (i.e. slow ones) i get just over 100MB/s copying between drives, compare that to the 30MB/s that you are topping out at

if you are using decent drives that can be up to 150MB/s and ssd's are in the 3-500MB/s between drives

personally i think 30MB/s is too slow, but if the OP is fine with that then there isnt a problem

I was really replying to the earlier post that "speeds would be utter crap" as if they would be unusable. As you say for a data storage where's the harm in spending £20 on an enclosure?

Hyburnate · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:21

I used a USB dock on my laptop. When you come from internal sata to that, damn its so slow. However you will get used to it. Find a laptop with a smallish HDD then install a SSD. That way you can have your OS on that with your files on the HDD.

ed79 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:35

I do find myself saying to it "come on you ******* slow ***** piece of ****" when I'm using it, but that's cos I am a little impatient!

I'm just doing some comparison speed test - will post the results shortly...

Surveyor · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:54

Hyburnate said:
I used a USB dock on my laptop. When you come from internal sata to that, damn its so slow. However you will get used to it. Find a laptop with a smallish HDD then install a SSD. That way you can have your OS on that with your files on the HDD.

If the laptop and/or dock/caddy are USB 2.0 then transfer speed will be limited to ~30MB/s.

If they're both USB 3.0 then you basically get the full transfer rate of the HDD.

Surveyor · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:57

ed79 said:
I'm just doing some comparison speed test - will post the results shortly...

I did some a while back:

2.5" 5400rpm drive in a bus powered external enclosure:

USB 2.0 read and write 30MB/s

USB 3.0 read 75MB/s, write 60MB/s

3.5" 5400rpm drive in an external dock:

USB 2.0 read and write 30MB/s

USB 3.0 read 90MB/s, write 60MB/s

lee20010 · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:59

All I'd be doing is putting films, tv shows, and music on the drives so the laptop isnt running slow. Then using the external to stream from via xbox or connect to my pc then through HDMI to the TV.

ed79 · 30 Dec 2011 at 14:27

Turns out the HD I'm using is a 7200rpm. It's in a USB3 enclosure but my motherboard only has USB2. There was more of a difference than I thought there'd be...

Copying a 4.3GB 720p video from external to internal...
SATA2 88 MB/sec USB2 33 MB/sec

Copying that file back again was a bit slower
SATA2 76 MB/sec USB2 26MB/sec

Demux (seperating video and audio) took 216 secs on SATA and 488 secs USB2

HD Tune

So it's about 2-3 times slower. I'd be interested to see how fast a NAS box copies stuff over a home gigabit network - but that's probably a bit off topic.

This was using a Icybox IB-371StUS2-B. OCUK don't seem to sell it but the IB-318 is about £10 more... http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-060-BT&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

lee20010 · 30 Dec 2011 at 15:52

What is a NAS drive because I was going to get WDTV instead as a streaming unit as I use homeplugs for my internet around the house. Would that be faster?

ed79 · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:19

I think Homeplugs are up to 200Mbit/sec so 200/8 = 25MB/sec, so even USB2 would be a bit faster - and I doubt homeplugs get that full speed in reality.

If you were to get a NAS box http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=46&catid=2125 on a gigabit network you could theoretically get network transfers of 1000mbit /8 = 125 MB/sec.

Of course you'd need a £400 NAS box PLUS hardisks, plus a Gigabit switch, PLUS cabling - that's why I went for a £30 external USB HD instead which I plug into my TV and lets me watch all my films that way!