External Enclosure Question

[iGen]

I just bought an external hard drive enclosure...

...yeah I know, it's sexy...

but anyway my question is this: It says it's suitable for 3.5" IDE Hard Drives up to 400GB. If I buy a 500GB HD and put it in there will it still work? I'm assuming I will only get to use 400GB worth of space but that's better than it not working at all. The reason I'm asking is because I can actually find 500GB drives for cheaper than the 400 gig ones... and if I get a Mac Pro at some point I could install it and use the extra 100 gigs.

 

[zirkle2007]

I just bought an external hard drive enclosure...

...yeah I know, it's sexy...

but anyway my question is this: It says it's suitable for 3.5" IDE Hard Drives up to 400GB. If I buy a 500GB HD and put it in there will it still work? I'm assuming I will only get to use 400GB worth of space but that's better than it not working at all. The reason I'm asking is because I can actually find 500GB drives for cheaper than the 400 gig ones... and if I get a Mac Pro at some point I could install it and use the extra 100 gigs.

I'm thinking it probably has something to do with a heat issue. There is probably a point where you would need a self cooling enclosure to insure stability. If you aren't going to leave it on all the time though, I'm sure you'll be fine. You could always email the manufacture for the actual reason though.

 

[iGen]

Thanks. It's funny though because there's a virtually identical model that has some "one touch back up" button that says it can handle up to 500GB. So I don't know if there was something to do with the Prolific chipset that only allows 400GB. Hopefully I can still use at least 400GB worth of space on a 500GB drive. And it's USB 2.0 btw.

 

[hayduke]

Sometimes the chipset sets a hardware limit for the maximum drive size so it may *only* work with less than 400GB. I think it is unlikely that it would work, but only recognize 400GB of a 500GB drive. It *might* recognize all 500GB.

Lastly, make sure the drive you buy matches the internal interface of the enclosure. You don't want to buy a SATA drive for and IDE enclosure. On that note, if the enclosure doesn't support SATA or SAS then the drive won't be usable in a Mac Pro.

 

[iGen]

Hmm, good point. Ok I guess I'll spend the extra $5-$10 on 100GB less of a Hard Drive lol.

Thanks!

 

[iGen]

Then again like you said it might work with all 500GB. I'm thinking maybe the specs were written at the time it was created which seems to be a long time ago, possibly back before there were any hard drives bigger than 400GB. That might explain why the nearly identical enclosure with the "one touch backup" button has a 500GB suitability listed. It was probably made a year or so later when HDDs were more capacital (yes I made that word up). I'm thinking maybe risk it... I sure would like the extra 100 gigs.


UPDATE: I just checked the manufacturer's website (duh) and it listed the specs as "suitable for 3.5" IDE Hard Drives up to 750GB"! So I'm thinking that my assumption is right in that the specs listed on the site where I bought it were from when the product was initially made back when 400GB was the biggest HDD out. Now that there's 750GB drives, the official website updated accordingly, but the websites that sell the product have yet to do so. Anyway sorry to bother you with all the rambling on such a trivial issue!!