What Is a USB Hard Drive Enclosure?
Hard drive enclosures make it possible to use an internal hard drive externally. Buying an enclosure for an old drive sitting on the shelf is cheaper than buying a new external drive. Most drive enclosures are compatible with USB computer ports.
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How It Works
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The inside of a hard drive enclosure is empty for the most part because it functions as a protective shell for an internal hard drive. After a hard drive is placed inside, the drive is connected to a small circuit board. On one side of the circuit board are short cables to connect to the hard drive, including the data cable and the power cable. These cables are the same as those found inside of computer cases. On the other side of the circuit board are the external ports. Your Universal Serial Bus (USB) and possibly a power cable are connected to these ports.
Compatible Drives
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External USB drive enclosures come in two sizes: those for 3.5-inch desktop computer drives and those for 2.5-inch laptop drives. You cannot install a laptop drive into a 3.5-inch enclosure due to differences in the pins at the back of the drive. The enclosure must also match the hard drive's interface type. Most drive enclosures are designed for use with Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives, for example, and are incompatible with Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) drives. However, some IDE-compatible enclosures exist.
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USB
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Most drive enclosures are compatible with a computer's USB ports. On enclosures for 3.5-inch drives, the USB cable usually has one flat Type A connector end that plugs into the computer and one square-shaped Type B connector that plugs into the enclosure. Due to their smaller size, enclosures for laptop drives use a cable with a Mini B connector instead of a full-sized Type B. Some cables for laptop drive enclosures include one forked end, providing two Type A USB connectors which take up two ports on your computer: one for data transfer, and one for power.
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