Question about HDD from OWNED R15

[TITAN_53]

I have an old OWNED R15 that i have removed the Drive from and would like to put into an enclosure to use it as a storage device as i have serveral things on a friend of mines computer that i would like to transfer off onto this drive so that if something happens to the computer or we cease being roomates that i have all my stuff saved and am not forced to lose it when the computer goes. Just curious if anyone else has done this and if so do you have any enclosures that you would recommend i use. Im a newbie at this whole situation so any help would be appreciated. The drive is a Seagate ST3160022ACE 160 GB ATA-100 Hard Drive

***Also MODS if you feel this would be better suited in another area feel free to move it, i just posted it here as this seems to be where to get the best answers****

Thanks in advance.

[hobie346]

I have an old OWNED R15 that i have removed the Drive from and would like to put into an enclosure to use it as a storage device as i have serveral things on a friend of mines computer that i would like to transfer off onto this drive so that if something happens to the computer or we cease being roomates that i have all my stuff saved and am not forced to lose it when the computer goes. Just curious if anyone else has done this and if so do you have any enclosures that you would recommend i use. Im a newbie at this whole situation so any help would be appreciated. The drive is a Seagate ST3160022ACE 160 GB ATA-100 Hard Drive

***Also MODS if you feel this would be better suited in another area feel free to move it, i just posted it here as this seems to be where to get the best answers****

Thanks in advance.
What type of connection are you planning to use on each of the computer systems; IDE, USB, e-SATA, SATA? USB is the slowest (< 20MBps) but if you don't have a lot of data to transfer then it wouldn't matter; just make sure your computer has a USB 2.0 connection. Don't bother with USB if the connection is USB 1.0 or 1.1 as you will be waiting all year to transfer even small amounts of data. USB is also the easyest to connect. SATA and e-SATA are the fastest but you have to have a compatable connection on each system. IDE enclosures are more difficult to connect/configure espically if you're not the computer geek kind of person.

[Stuart Sweet]

My concern would be that it would be hard to find an PATA enclosure for it. Most enclosures today are SATA.

[dave29]

Did some R15's have SATA drives and others didn't? I'm pretty sure that my last R15 had a 160gb SATA drive.

[carl6]

I am pretty sure ALL R15 and R16 drives are parallel IDE, not SATA. They would have some form/variation of unix format on them, so you would need to re-format the drive to whatever your pc is using.

And this thread should probably be in the regular DVR forum.

[dave29]

I am pretty sure ALL R15 and R16 drives are parallel IDE, not SATA. They would have some form/variation of unix format on them, so you would need to re-format the drive to whatever your pc is using.

And this thread should probably be in the regular DVR forum.

I opened an old R15(not active and owned) of mine up last week to see if I wanted the HDD out of it and if I remember right, it was SATA.

[hobie346]

It really doesn't matter if the OP's drive is PATA or SATA. You can get an enclosure that except either and convert it to USB, PATA and SATA (even e-SATA). What matters in this case is how is the OP going to connect this drive to the computer. I have one enclosure that takes a PATA drive and converts it to USB and e-SATA. I have another enclosure that takes a SATA drive and converts it to USB, e-SATA and Firewire-B.

[TITAN_53]

Clearly you all know more than i do about this as this is the first time i am trying to do something like this.

Basically what i would like to do is use the drive as more or less an external usb drive im guessing. I would like to be able to store anything on the drive and then be able to unplug it from my friends computer after transferring my stuff from it to the drive and be able to use it on any other computer as an external drive or possibly even putting the drive into another computer as an internal drive if that is even possible. Any help you guys can provide is GREATLY appreciated

[BattleZone]

Any IDE/PATA external USB (and/or Firewire) drive enclosure should work just fine. There's nothing special about the drives used in the DVRs.

[TITAN_53]

Has anyone done this or have any specific enclosures that they have used/recommend?

[harsh]

My concern would be that it would be hard to find an PATA enclosure for it. Most enclosures today are SATA.USB or Firewire to IDE boxes are widely available.

Global Computer (Tiger Direct) and Newegg offer many choices. The ratio of offerings is a little over 2:1 at Newegg in favor of SATA but almost half of the SATA versions are for 2.5" drives.

[harsh]

Has anyone done this or have any specific enclosures that they have used/recommend?I'd recommend pricing complete solutions. You may find that a brand new drive already mounted in an enclosure is a better deal that trying to reuse one you have laying around.

For $69.99. Office Max is offering a 250GB Seagate external drive.

For about $10 more you can get a 500GB drive.

[TITAN_53]

I'd recommend pricing complete solutions. You may find that a brand new drive already mounted in an enclosure is a better deal that trying to reuse one you have laying around.

For $69.99. Office Max is offering a 250GB Seagate external drive.

For about $10 more you can get a 500GB drive.

I would look into that but i have several extra drives lying around from old dvr's that will just be wasted if i dont do something with them. Thanks for the advice though harsh. With that said that brings up another question, i have i think 3 drives from old r15's that will never be used again. Are there any enclosures that would allow for more than 1 drive to combine the storage? Also if anyone knows another forum that might have better info for me feel free to direct me there.

[TITAN_53]

Ok, so now i have put the drive in an enclosure and formatted it. The last thing i need to know is if there is any way of having access to all the space on the HDD or if the section that was reserved for Directv will always be reserved. Its supposed to be a 160gb drive but the computer shows only 149gb available.

[harsh]

Welcome to the world of personal computer marketing lies. In Pee Cee hard drive capacity speak, 160GB is 160 billion bytes.

160 billion bytes is 148.8 gigabytes.

For other similar lies see tape drive capacity numbers and CD-ROM drive speeds.

[BattleZone]

http://www.monografias.com/trabajos34/numeracion-software/nu2.gif

Computers count in binary. 2^10 = 1024 (not 1000)

A *real* Gigabyte is 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.


"Advertised" hard drive space uses bytes based on 1000, rather than the correct 1024.

160,000,000,000 / 1,073,741,824 = 149.01 (approx).

[TITAN_53]

As stupid as it is at least that explains it and i feel better about the situation knowing that im getting full use of the storage space. Thanks for all the help everyone. Project complete.