Startech 3.5" External Hard Drive Enclosures

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Movieman

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#285945 27-May-2021 12:48

I have recently ordered a new All-In-One Desktop PC from Dell NZ. I am giving my old computer set up to my son.

I have an 8Tb Seagate Iron Wolf drive in my old kit, and I want to swap it out for a 1Tb drive. I then would like to use my 8Tb drive as an external drive to stream movies etc from my new computer.

I have been looking at the Startech 3.5" External Hard Drive Enclosure to house my Iron Wolf drive.

Has anyone used, or know of someone who has used one. Any good, reliability etc. Or are there any better options available. Thanks.

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#2713806 27-May-2021 13:55

I have not used the startech brand, but have been very happy with the Orico equivalent https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/ENCORC2010/Orico-Dual-Bay-25--35-SATA-to-USB-30-External-Hard

Have put SSD and spinning disks in it and the one button disk to disk cloning is nice feature.

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#2713822 27-May-2021 14:49

Only issue I ever had with a Startech dock was some years ago, which was that it used a particular JMicron chip that wouldn't report SMART data, but that was more to do with JMicron than Startech.

I've had a couple of the cheaper PB Tech docks fail in the past (which look very much like the Orico ones but I can't swear they were), current one is a Vantec Nexstar which has been solid.

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#2713908 27-May-2021 15:49

I'v done similar. But killed two birds with one stone. Bought a prebuilt drive and swapped the drives between the case and computer.

Didn't bother with anything flash, just looked at what prebuilt drives were available at PB tech, then checked on youtube 1) how to dissassemble it, and 2) that it really was a SATA drive inside the case (some external drives have USB ports solder right onto the drive, so you can not instal them inside a computer).

Yes, the new HDD won't be the fastest drive on the planet, but that won't be your problem, and if it is a data drive to go with a SSD, it will barely be noticeable.

Movieman

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#2713998 27-May-2021 16:50

Thanks for the replies guys.

The new computer has a 256Gb SSD and a 1Tb drive for storage. I would have swapped the 1Tb for the 8Tb but don't want to mess with the all-in-one, that could blow my warranty.

I have looked at the Orico and Vantec, but I think I will settle for the Startech.

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#2720099 7-Jun-2021 10:41

I bought the Startech 3.5" hard drive enclosure and installed my 8Tb Seagate IronWolf hard drive in it.

I had a few problems with the drive going to "sleep" too often, which was a bit of a pain. Fixed it with a simple little free program called Keep Alive HD