Computer Cases & Towers

Why Use A Hard Drive Caddy

Hard Drive Caddy's (sometimes also referred to as HDD cases or enclosures) are growing in popularity all the time. Not surprising really given how easy they are to use and the relatively low cost of the caddies.

Hard drive enclosures tend to be used in two different situations:

1. To recover data from a salvaged hard drive and then to reuse the hard drive in the caddy to create a back up solution.
2. Used in conjunction with a new hard disk drive you can create your own back up solution cheaper than you would by buying a "packaged" solution from some of the leading brands.

If you've bought a new PC then you must either ensure the hard disk drive in your old PC is removed and destroyed before you take it to a re-cycling centre or alternatively take it out, pop it into a caddy, format the disk and create yourself a handy and inexpensive back up solution. Whilst the hard disk you've salvaged might only be small in comparison to your new PC a salvaged 120GB hard disk drive will hold up to 30,000 songs, 150 hours of video, or 25,000 photos. Given you've got to remove the hard drive anyway it seems a real shame not to make use of it!

If you do use an enclosure with a new hard disk then you could install say a 1.5TB hard disk into the caddy thus making yourself an inexpensive back up monster.

For many the true benefit of a HDD caddy is that it enables you recover data from a hard disk taken out of an old PC. When you are using a salvaged Hard Disk Drive then if you are using an IDE, ATA or PATA Hard Disk Drives then you need to make sure that the jumper settings on the hard disk drive are set to "master" and not "cable select" or "slave". If you don't get the jumper settings correct then the caddy won't be recognised when connected to the PC.

Whilst you might expect the hard disk drives to be set to "master" as by default its not always the case so its definitely worth checking the disk before you use a caddy. If you need to change the jumper settings it's easy to do and only takes a few seconds. Most Hard Disk Drive manufactures will have put a self explanatory label on top of the hard drive showing how the jumper needs to be set up to create the "master" "slave" and "cable select" options.

Jumpers are just metal pins that have small black plastic sleeves that slot on them.

Hard disk drive caddy's usually connect to your PC via a USB cable but there are options available that also support Firewire and e-SATA. For most USB 2.0 is all that's needed not least because you'll pay a premium for a caddy with a range of connection options.

When the caddy is connected to your PC via a USB cable it works in pretty much the same way that a USB flash drive works – a new drive letter is dynamically created and you can then copy, save, drag and drop data to the hard disk drive.

Note that the newer standards of SATA hard disk drives have no jumper setting to worry about

About the Author

Phil is part of the team at USB2U and USBNow. Launched in 2002 USB2U has now establised iteself as one of the leading supplier of branded flash drives and custom USB memory sticks in the UK. USB2U offer a free design and mock up service couple with great prices and outstanding customer support. Contact us today for a quote. We'd love to hear from you.

The Easy-To-Use And Conveniently Sized Lexmark Optra M 410 B/W Printer

The Lexmark Optra M410 Printer is a black-and-white laser kind of printer. Its storage and media handling capacity are expandable for meeting varying productivity demands. Hassle-free machine operation and connectivity makes for a user-friendly home and office tool. There are a variety of media types and sizes supported for churning out high-quality day-to-day documents, especially when coupled with Lexmark Optra M410 replacement toners.

Within the white enclosure is a fast worker, the Toshiba 3907 74MHz processor. This gives the machine enough speed to be able to produce 12 mono pages per minute. Additionally, it only takes as little as 17 seconds for the first page to be printed. On the front panel are a few large buttons and an LCD status display, making sure operation is confusion-free.

It has a compact form factor which measures 15.9 inches x 12.4 inches x 17.1 inches (D x W x H) and weighs 32.6 pounds. Leaving a small footprint, it can be placed even on a desktop and still leave enough room for other things. Other than providing an office needs for professional-looking documents, it's also suitable for use at home. Installation is a breeze as it carries both IEEE 1284 parallel and USB ports.

A resolution of 600 x 600 dpi (dots per inch) is used to provide documents that are clear and distortion free. Such resolution is enough to produce texts that are sharp and monochrome images that are detailed. Media types supported include ordinary paper, labels, cardstocks, transparencies and envelopes. The machine can work on media sizes from 3 inches x 5 inches to a max of 8.5 inches x 14 inches.

Making sure that it can catch up with the demands of a busy work environment is its impressive media handling capacity. By standard, it has a 370-sheet input capacity. This is through a 20-sheet multipurpose tray feeder, a 100-sheet tray and another 250-sheet tray available. But with the purchase and installation of optional tray feeders, having an 870-sheet media input capacity is possible which is enhanced when using Lexmark Optra toner cartridge.

There's a 4MB memory installed upon purchase. However, thanks to the pair of DIMM (100-pin) slots, the memory can be easily expanded up to 132MB. It's also possible to attach a 2.1GB hard disk to the machine, for a much larger capacity (the hard disk and adapter needed are sold separately). There are a number of printer languages included such as PostScript 3, PCL 6 and Adobe PPDS. Typefaces available are: 5 bitmapped, 39 vector, 86 PCL and 89 PostScript.

It supports many different computer operation systems to make sure compatibility issues are minimized. To help in effective printer management, there's the included MarkVision utility. The manufacturer has set the maximum duty cycle at 20000 pages each month. Maintaining this recommended number of monthly prints ensures that you get the most favorable machine performance and toner usage.

Basing on the specifications above, the mono Lexmark Optra M410 Printer paired with Lexmark M410 cartridge is suitable for use at home or in an office. It comes with a fast processor and simple operation requirements - all these at an affordable price tag. Because it has enough room for expansion, it can grow with your productivity requirements in the future. Keeping operation cost down is the monthly duty cycle of the print head and cartridge at 10000 pages.

New unibody MacBook vs refurb MacBook pro aluminum unibody?

Should I get the new white MacBook that comes standard with 2gbs of ram and 250gb hdd, it has the new 7-hour battery, glass trackpad, but it lacks an sd slot and FireWire, but I don't use FireWire but the lack of sd slot is important. And there's the refurb MacBook pro that has all the features above, ony it has an edge to edge screen, a black keyboard and of course the aluminium enclosure. But it has 2gb of ddr3 Ram, and a 160GB HDD. So the only thing that's pulling me towards the MacBook pro is the sd slot. Which should I choose? Thanks!
Btw, they are both $999.

I have bought several refurbs from Apple recently with no bad experiences. The MacBook pro may have a smaller HDD, but considering the falling price of SD cards for the slot (bonus storage when needed) and the power of a solid-state HD as a future upgrade, I would lean towards the Pro. The black keyboard will need fewer cleanings to look nice and the resale is likely to be higher in several years for the Pro.

Buffalo MiniStation Extreme meets MIL specs (Slash Gear)

Buffalo Technology has been making all sorts of external storage devices for a
long time that span the range from small and portable to larger solutions
designed to be left in the office. The company has new storage product that it
has announced today called the MiniStation Extreme. This external storage
solution uses fast connectivity [...]

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