Building your own hard drive?

[adk]

I'm looking for an external hard drive and I'm also cheap. How difficult is it to put an internal hard drive into an external case, and how much work does it take to set up? also, are there certain hard drives that are mac compatible and ones that aren't?

 

[CanadaRAM]

I'm looking for an external hard drive and I'm also cheap. How difficult is it to put an internal hard drive into an external case, and how much work does it take to set up?

Two minutes and a Phillips screwdriver.

also, are there certain hard drives that are mac compatible and ones that aren't?

No, any IDE hard drive will do the trick. The enclosure should be Firewire or Firewire/USB and should have it's own AC power supply. Some USB bus-powered enclosures aren't Mac compatible.

Look for a hard drive that comes with the full (3 to 5 year) manufacturer's warranty. Avoid 'recertified', reconditioned or 'pull' hard drives that don't come with a written warranty from the manufacturer.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

 

[adk]

sounds easy. once i have it put together is is plug and play or do I need to still set it up?

 

[wPod]

sounds easy. once i have it put together is is plug and play or do I need to still set it up?

It will be recognized as soon as you plug it in, though you may need to use Disk Utility to format the drive if it is new, or has been used in a windows system. You would prefer HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) format over a windows FAT 32 format.

 

[CanadaRAM]

sounds easy. once i have it put together is is plug and play or do I need to still set it up?

You need to format and optionally partition the hard drive with Disk Utility

 

[Err]

darn, I was hoping this thread was about "building your own harddrive" like soldering dimm chips into a breadboard LOL

 

[betty02]

darn, I was hoping this thread was about "building your own harddrive" like soldering dimm chips into a breadboard LOL

man u joking, that would be well harsh

 

[stevep]

Get a circular disc, preferably ferrous metal like steel, and stroke it with a magnet a few thousand times and then.......
Oh buqqer, just read the OP properly.

darn, I was hoping this thread was about "building your own harddrive" like soldering dimm chips into a breadboard LOL

 

[iEdd]

darn, I was hoping this thread was about "building your own harddrive" like soldering dimm chips into a breadboard LOL

Yeah same, after opening all threads in tabs and saving this one 'til last.

 

[adk]

Sorry to dissapoint you guys. But with my complete lack of computer skills it would be an achievement just to attach a hard drive to an enclosure!

 

[bigandy]

Sorry to dissapoint you guys. But with my complete lack of computer skills it would be an achievement just to attach a hard drive to an enclosure!

...that, and, now i'm assuming here so stop me if i'm wrong, but your complete lack of a dust free lab...