Black X External Drive Holders

[Poke]

Hmm I wonder if these would work with the 622's and the 722's??

I use Thermaltake for my PC's cases and now they are making some cool external drive holders.. Check them out...

Thermaltake ST0005U SATA to USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure

 

[kwindrem]

Hmm I wonder if these would work with the 622's and the 722's??

I use Thermaltake for my PC's cases and now they are making some cool external drive holders.. Check them out...

Thermaltake ST0005U SATA to USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure

I don't see why not. I just wouldn't count on hot-swap. Make sure you shut down the receiver first. Better yet, disable USB storage then unplug it.

 

[Pepper]

It says hot swappable. Worth a try, worst case use the power switch.

No need to reboot the receiver for a external drive swap.

 

[RandallA]

That's the same one P Smith posted in the Technical Forum. For $28.00, it's worth a try.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...3845-useful-cradle-ppl-who-have-many-ehd.html

 

[kstuart]

This is an awesome concept and the reviews of it on Newegg were overwhelmingly positive, so the thing does work. (Thanks to Poke and Smith for the heads up !)

I am so sick of flakey external enclosures and needing one enclosure for each drive (otherwise one has to do the whole procedure of opening up the enclosure, unmounting the current drive, mounting the other one, etc - obviously not practical just to see a movie that happens to be on a different drive than the one attached to the 622). I also tend to buy cheaper external enclosures, because at this point, as drives get cheaper, the enclosures are approaching the prices of the drive. ($30 for a good quality enclosure vs $50-$80 for a drive).

Hopefully, this has a top quality chipset that works reliably with the 622, and then that issue will be solved permanently. :up

I now use hard drives to backup data from my PC as well, so I may get the new esata version for my PC when it comes out (no need to get that for the 622 since it doesn't support esata).

By the way, if - like me - you prefer Newegg, they also have a $10 mail-in rebate that expires in a few hours.

Otherwise, the Microcenter rebate is good until June 1st.

Note that this is not for you if you are a "butterfingers" as the hard drives will be "naked" - without the protection of the cases - or if you often have a lot of static electricity in your house (so be careful and touch a faucet before changing the drives).

 

[kstuart]

Update: I received the Thermaltake BlacX today and it works perfectly.

I removed both my External drives that I use with the 622 from their enclosures and put them in the BlacX and it worked smoothly and crisply.

You just press the on-off button to turn off the current drive (which gives the usual "you've disconnect a USB drive" popup on the 622), and then press the eject button on the BlacX which just pushes up the hard drive a little so it is off the sata connector, switch drives, and press the on-off button again. No need to do anything with the 622 (other than acknowledge the popups).

Based on 10 minutes use , it looks like it has a good USB chip and plays well with the 622. I'll be sure to report any glitches I encounter.

Again, I should state:

Note that this is not for you if you are a "butterfingers" as the hard drives will be "naked" - without the protection of the cases - or if you often have a lot of static electricity in your house (so be careful and touch a faucet before changing the drives).

 

[Poke]

Cool! Glad to hear that their working. I buy my PC Cases from Thermaltake and I was on their site this past week. I plan on building me a new PC this fall so I was looking at their site and noticed them on there. Again glad they worked out for you..

 

[kstuart]

Even better price on this at zipzoomfly until 5/12 .... $19 after Mail In Rebate ($29 before MIR):

THERMALTAKE N0028USU BlacX 2.5/3.5in SATA Hard Drive USB Docking Retail at ZipZoomfly

and to put in it, how about a:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB Serial ATA(SATA) 7200RPM Hard Drive at ZipZoomfly

for $69.99

 

[Compulov]

Given that 95% of what I record now is in HD, and I've been saving some movies, this might actually push me to finally start using an external drive with my 622. My only concern is that internal sata connectors are only specified to support up to 50 insertions (per SATA spec). While I'm sure that's a very conservative estimate, I'd be careful about swapping drives on a very regular basis. On the plus side, though, chances are if a connector goes it would probably be the female connections in the dock, so if the drive is ok, you can still use it in another dock or case. There's also the issue of no shielding to protect the drive, but I think that's not much of an issue given most drives are well shielded themselves and are usually inside a very RF noisy environment anyway. I've also never been a big fan of running drives in any position other than horizontal and right-side-up, but that's a personal prejudice. I've seen drives run for years in other positions, just so long as they aren't run upside-down (which can be harmful).

 

[Pepper]

I just ordered one of these, I hope it's still working for you.

 

[Techfizzle]

what if a guy could wifi the receiver to his copmuter, then he could download shows?

 

[Pepper]

I got the N0028USU (USB only) and it works great! The drives run very quiet and cool, I'm using it with several WD5000AAJS and WD5000AAKS.

They also have the N0005USU (link in first post) which is both USB and eSATA, and the N0029USU which is USB with a 4-port USB hub included. These will also take the 2.5 inch drives by the way.

I don't even need to press the power button. Just pop out the drive, answer the prompt, then insert another.