Insides of an external hard drive enclosure?

[andersonmattt]

I am planning on gutting a broken mac mini and turn it into an external hard drive. Ive taken apart external enclosures before and ive seen the sata connector, but i have no idea where to buy one or what it is even called.
Does anybody have any better information? Because i'd hate to have to buy an enclosure and strip it for the parts.

Thanks

 

[robbieduncan]

You just mean the connector or the entire board with the SATA connector, bridge chip, power regulators and so on? It is possible to buy bridge boards. For example this was the second Google result for "SATA USB bridge board"

 

[andersonmattt]

That's exactly what i was looking for! thank you. Now i at least know what i'm looking for. Most likley im going to wait a year or so and make it light peak compatible or at least a faster firewire

 

[andersonmattt]

Am i right in seeing that theres not an actual sata port on the hardware, but only a plug for a cable?

 

[robbieduncan]

Am i right in seeing that theres not an actual sata port on the hardware, but only a plug for a cable?

No idea. As I said it was just an example. With a bit of searching you can probably find what you want.

 

[andersonmattt]

well now im on the right track, thanks

 

[skorpien]

Actually, the one robbieduncan linked has a SATA port, but it seems you need a cable to attach it to the hard drive. It's perpendicular to the board rather than parallel. Edit: And has two SATA connectors judging from the description.

 

[andersonmattt]

I was confused by the two SATA connectors. Does this mean it will raid? And any predictions on when apple is going to bring USB 3/lightpeak/FireWire 1600 & 3200?

 

[skorpien]

If you read the description:

Manufacturer Unbranded
Series Firewire+USB2 Bridge Board
Model UF2DSATA01 (Oxford OXUF924DSa)
Type for 2x SATA HD/CD; Normal/RAID

No clue about the other stuff though. Only Apple knows for sure.

 

[andersonmattt]

Yeah I guess so. I'm hoping for sometime next year