Guide How to convert an external USB HDD to an internal

How to convert an external USB HDD to an internal

The first thing you will need is obviously the USB enclosure. I picked this one up at CompUSA for $30. You can get one off eBay for about half that.


This is what is included in the package.


And when you open it up...


First, disconnect the front LEDs. You can use these later if you wish, but I decided not to. My case is cluttered enough, as is.


Unscrew the circuitboard from the chassis and disconnect the power switch.


Remember the location of the hole that the power switch connects to.


See this? It's big, it's bulky, it's... Useless. Keep it or toss it, I don't care.


You might want to test it first, though... Note that I placed a HDD jumper in the place of the power switch. It now is on full time.


More testing is always good.


WARNING - What I am about to do is dumb. I had to buy a soldering iron because mine is a bit... Uhh... Broken and lost.


I told you I was dumb. I cut up a 3-pin to 4-pin fan pass-through dohickey and soldered it to the wires on the board. It would have been smarter to replace the existing right-angle molex with a different gendered one, or to solder the wires right into the board. If I create another one, I will do it the "right" way. I then proceeded to wrap the wires in electrical tape, seperating each wire so they don't short out.

 

Example.


Here I screwed the circuitboard on to the back of a 40GB WD HDD utilizing 2 motherboard screws and spacers.


Unfortunatly only one side fit. This isn't that side


This is.


I used a molex splitter and some garbage ties to connect the HDD and the circuitboard to one power socket.


Here I attached a USB socket to my mobo tray, and connected it to the header on the mobo. Plug in the HDD, and cross your fingers.

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering WHY the hell I did this. In theory, it's possible to have nothing but USB cables cluttering up a computer case, and these are easily hidden. In addition, every HDD installed this way is "theoretically" hot-swappable. In practice, a custom drive enclosure (Like those $15 IDE racks at CompUSA... Hmm...) would make it hot-swappable. In reality, I was just bored.

 

Interesting. I agree with you, i think that you went through some extra work to make it all concieled with the wiring, but if your happy...

 

looks cool, i was thinking of converting my external enclosure to internal, but then i found a 2 port non raid serial ATA PCI controller, so im just buying a new HD to go with

il bookmark this just in case tho

 

bored?

 

nice crosspost: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=909940

and i say agein:

and if this realy was:

there are so many better things to waste $$ on. like sending it to me?

 

shadow, get the stick out of your buttocks

 

sorry, but i don't quite understand - what's the point? why would you want to convert it to be internal?

 

There's a couple possible reasons.

1) Hot swapability. If you can work with metal, it's easy to see how you can make a custom drive enclosure and set up a USB hot-swap 5.25" drive.

2) Smaller cable size. You've got an IDE drive, and you want SATA-sized cables.

3) Your PCI slots are full, so you have no room for a controller card. Hell, you've already got everything you need on the mobo already. Make use of it!

And to those complaining about speed loss - Believe me, you can't tell the difference. The drive is a 5400RPM ATA/100 anyway. Nothing too fancy. Gimme a benchmark to test it with. I'll show the difference. (Actually, come to think of it, I have Sandra Pro... BBIAB!)

 

hummm..... me likes that idea of hot-swappability with HDDs...... to the drawing board!!!!

 

http://www.uccs.edu/~thoward

Ehh, I guess I won't be that lazy. Here ya go.


17744kB/s USB
vs

19895kB/s IDE

Yes! It is slower! BUT! This is a 5400RPM USB ATA/100 drive compared to a 7200RPM IDE ATA/100 drive. Do take that in to consideration.

 

(Was a double post, I'm changing it to respond to Shadow)

I've yet to see ANY IDE drive take the full theoretical 133MB/s. And you seem to be correct about it consuming CPU cycles. However, this computer does two things - folds and serves. I've got 3 USB drives in it, (Only one's internal) and haven't noticed a slowdown. Then again... I've never used the machine as a desktop.

I've got 3x 73GB U160 10K SCSI drives on the way in.

Anywho, where can you get SCSI cheaper than PATA? (Seriously! I CRAVE some more low-profile drives!)

 

E to the B to the AY

 

wait a minute, SCSI drives are faster than PATA?!? i though they were old and obselete! ive got tons of SCSIs lying around, i should make use of them!

 

Old SCSI drives were faster than ATA drives from the same time, new SCSI drives are faster than new ATA drives.

SCSI has been around for a really long time, some of IBM's 286 machines used SCSI drives, and you can't seriously think those are faster than new ATA drives just because they are SCSI...