HD enclosure

Hey

I'm trying to buy an enclosure for a hd i salvaged from an old PC. How do you tell the actually physical size of the drive?(i.e. 3.5"). Also, will i be able to erase/format the drive in OS X?

thanks

measure across the short side of the drive. one type will measure about 3.5", the other about 2.5".

you should be able to tell them pretty easily by sight though. a 3.5 inch drive will be slightly larger than an average persons hand, a 2.5, slightly smaller. also the 3.5 will have a power connection, a data connection for numerous pins, and 6 prongs for 3 jumper positions. on the label of the drive somethere wit should say something like ATA, ultraATA, Serial ATA, SCSI, etc which you'll need to know to get the right enclosure.

this may also help you figure out what you have:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_drives

atticus8913 said:

I'm trying to buy an enclosure for a hd i salvaged from an old PC. How do you tell the actually physical size of the drive?

Click to expand...

Atticus - I have done exactly the same thing, with a used Hitachi 164 Gb HD, formatted for Windows.

A 3.5" drive:
Length 5.75" (145 mm)
Width 4.00" (100 mm)
Depth 1.00" (25 mm)

Also, will i be able to erase/format the drive in OS X?

Click to expand...

Yes, using Disk Utility. Reformat the disk with one partition, more if you wish, using HFS+ for use as read/write with your Mac. Search elsewhere in this forum for advice about using more than one partition, and having more than one file system (eg. NTFS for use with a Win computer) on your external HD.

Re disk enclosure: they're pretty standard for 3.5" drives, and fitting the drive inside them is a simple procedure. If you want a cheaper option (which I needed), then buy an IDE/SATA-USB adaptor kit (about US$18) and make a polystyrene tray for your 'bare' external hard drive. Great fun!