Seeking Unique External Drive Enclosure. Does One Exist That...?

[The Chad]

... allows you to eject the hard disk on the inside without any requirement of tools or disassembly?

Basically, I'm looking for a solution that uses standard 3.5" SATA drives that can be inserted into an external (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 or 800, not eSATA) enclosure that the drives can be inserted and removed easily.

Anything I've found on NewEgg seems to be designed for a RAID setup, and I'm not looking for something complicated and expensive like a Drobo (at least not for this purpose).

Basically, I want the usability of a Zip drive (removable cartridges) without the proprietary component to it to implement a simple, off-site, rotating, backup plan for my current setup.

Yes, I could just buy two enclosures and just unplug one entirely and move it off-site, but I'm hoping something like this can help.

Anyone hear of anything like this?

[Clegg]

In my old PC, I had a bay going into an unused CD bay, which worked similar as to what you want. It worked basically like an internal USB Hard Drive, with laptop drives. Kind of convoluted to get the drive out, as you had to unlock two locks with a special key, then push two buttons to get it out, but it worked.

[Andrew911tt]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812156102

i use this

[Viper007Bond]

I doubt Newegg sells the one I use anymore, but I have a SATA drive that I ran outta room for, so I just stuck it in a SATA -> USB2 case. Works fine.

To switch out the drive, you undo 2 screws on the back and then 4 screws holding the drive in.

[The Chad]

Originally Posted by Andrew911tt

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812156102

i use this

I'm aware of this solution, just was hoping for something slightly more appealing on a desk that is shared by a Macbook Pro and an Airport Extreme (yes, I'm one of THOSE people). However, this is a simple, easy to use approach that will most definitely work.

Originally Posted by Viper007Bond

I doubt Newegg sells the one I use anymore, but I have a SATA drive that I ran outta room for, so I just stuck it in a SATA -> USB2 case. Works fine.

To switch out the drive, you undo 2 screws on the back and then 4 screws holding the drive in.

What I have in mind is using Time Machine and SuperDuper! to backup to the external drive, and then on a daily or weekly basis, take the drive out and take it to work, where it'll sit for a day or week (depending on schedule), and be swapped for a 2nd drive, and then rotate that way. Since conceivably I will be doing this quite a bit, I was hoping for an enclosure that was a no tools necessary kind of setup.

Similar to how a Drobo just has a slot for a standard drive and locks into place, or how some computers have internal hot-swappable drives that are attached to a bracket that slides in and out.

Internal solutions for this do not work, because I'm on a notebook computer.

Thanks for the ideas though guys.

[MadCow809]

CyberSLIM S82 is exactly what you need.

Dunno if you can get them in USA though.






It takes 2 SATA Drives, also it has a spring mechanism, so removing the hdd only requires a single press.

Hm... but you dont want RAID... thats quite hard to find.

[the Interceptor]

How 'bout this one: http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkt.../index_en.html

[The Chad]

Originally Posted by MadCow809

CyberSLIM S82 is exactly what you need.

Dunno if you can get them in USA though.






It takes 2 SATA Drives, also it has a spring mechanism, so removing the hdd only requires a single press.

Hm... but you dont want RAID... thats quite hard to find.

The RAID solutions either seem to be outrageously expensive (I don't need 100% up-time with a backup drive. Just needs to store bits and the likelihood of the drive failing at the same time as my internal drive is slim, add the 3rd drive in the rotation and that makes it virtually impossible).

I COULD do a RAID setup, and just buy 4 drives instead of two, and swap out the set off-site. It's a little more comprehensive than I want (read: expensive) but would work. But when reading reviews about inexpensive RAID systems like this one (though, I haven't researched that particular unit), they seem to not be the most reliable for data storage. Or you end up dealing with a proprietary system (like the Drobo) that makes data recovery in a Drobo failure next to impossible.

This is closer to what I'm seeking. I've just always been under the impression is you use RAID for uptime, but for backup, off-site simple storage is the way to go. (Sidenote: I'm aware of products like JungleDisk and Amazon's S3 service for backup, but I have the need to backup over 100 gigs of data so S3 would get quite expensive at that storage point).

This is the wall I've seem to have hit in my own searching. A unit that is what I want, but more complicated than what I need, or a unit that is simple like what I need, but requiring tools to do the work (which takes time, and I'm lazy sometimes and for a backup system to work, it needs to be as automatic as possible).

I have friends who have no backup regime at all, and I would like to demonstrate to them with my own system that data protection is important. I'm tired of fixing computers that wouldn't need fixed if they'd just backup data.

Thank you all for your patience.

[The Chad]

Originally Posted by the Interceptor

How 'bout this one: http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkt.../index_en.html

BINGO. That looks like exactly what I want. I wish there were a FireWire option, but beggars cannot be choosers.

Thank you. As long as there isn't some proprietary software drivers needed (being I'm on Mac OSX), this should be EXACTLY what I am looking for.

Big thanks

Edit: Now the big question, where can I buy this shipped to the USA?

[Viper007Bond]

I just manually backup data and I'm good unless my PC catches fire.

I have 5 drives in my PC and I just copy important stuff to another hard drive every couple months. If I really cared / was cool, I'd setup a program to clone folder(s) every X days.

I also have a 320GB in an enclosure that I have offsite for the yearly or so backups.

[the Interceptor]

Originally Posted by The Chad

Edit: Now the big question, where can I buy this shipped to the USA?

On the Sharkoon website, it says under "Where to buy"

Please use our contact form to let us know in which country you’re searching for a retailer. You will then receive an overview of the country you’re interested in.

[sns2015]

Originally Posted by The Chad

Edit: Now the big question, where can I buy this shipped to the USA?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153066

Basically the same thing, but without the second USB port, card reader, and e-Sata, but considering your on a Mac, I don't think you were planning on using the e-sata...