What do I need?!

dawson303 · 8 May 2011 at 06:31

Hello,

I've recently been given a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 3.5 Series 80GB and would like to use it as an external HDD.

I've asked a few of my tech friends and they're not quite sure what adapter I'll need for it.

Can any of you help me? Here are some images I took of the HDD:

I hope you can help!

Joe.

CAPTAINBUMFLUFF · 8 May 2011 at 06:58

You will need one of these

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-008-AK&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

Price does work out quite high, You would be better off in my opinion buying a 500gb external for about £15 more

cmndr_andi · 8 May 2011 at 07:00

Hi there,

That hard drive is 3.5in size and uses a standard SATA connection.

If you want to use it as an external hard disk then the easiest option is to buy an enclosure like this where you screw the drive in (installation will take about 2 minutes), you then plug it into your PC using either the USB 2.0 or eSATA connection (eSATA is faster), and plug it into the mains power using the included adapter.

You could also use a dock like this (this particular model supports USB3, but not eSATA). This one does eSATA if that is what you need.

However, bear in mind that you don't want to spend a lot of money on converting that hard drive to work as an external - it is a pretty old model (so it won't be too quick) and you can get a physically smaller, USB bus powered (so no extra power connection needed), 320GB external drive for £37 if you look here.

dawson303 · 9 May 2011 at 12:26

Thank-you so much guys.

Looking to save the hassle and just buy an External HDD and keep the Hard drive listed above as a spare for my PC.