I’ve been using two 1.5TB Samsung USB 2.0 drives for extra storage for a while. They work fine but the limited bandwidth of last-generation’s USB can be sloooooooow. The drive enclosures look great but copying data at 25 megabytes per second is a pain in the ass.
I started looking for new USB 3.0 enclosures on some web stores and had the bright idea to look on eBay. Even on eBay these new enclosures were a little pricey, but then I came across an auction for “used” eSATA enclosures. Apparently these were Iomega drives that had the hard drives removed for some reason, and the seller had a lot of them.
I have not been using the eSATA features of my motherboard. After checking the motherboard manual I discovered that its eSATA line ran from a separate controller so I wouldn’t lose any SATA connections.
To make a long story short, I bought two of these external drive enclosures for 15 Euros ($20 for you Americans) each, including shipping! What can go wrong at that price?
When I got the drive cases I ripped out the hard drives from my old enclosure and installed them into the “new” ones, and voila! I was getting 125 MB / sec transfer speeds, which is a 500% performance increase for only a little money. Can’t go wrong with that… or can you?
The one thing I liked about the old drive cases is that they had an on/off switch. My “new” enclosures were missing a power button. The hard drives in my old Samsung enclosure were “eco” green drives with a standard SATA interface.
The drives like to spin up and down a lot if left powered on. Also, for reasons unknown, if the drives are in sleep mode Windows will spin them up whenever the OS is shutting down…
I didn’t like the beige/gray (but more beige) plastic front of the new enclosures. It’s not in my nature to leave stuff the way they are. I suppose it’s a bad habit at times, but these drives are begging to be modded.
The plastic covers were quickly taken care of by a little plastic primer. I still had a cheap can of matte-black spray paint. Surely I don’t have to explain what a spray paint can is… Ok, it’s a cylindrical can with paint and aerosol inside and… oh, never-mind.
Anyhow, after painting the plastic black, they matched the brushed aluminum (really, what was Iomega thinking with a beige and black color scheme?). Now it’s time to tackle the “always on” issue. I have a background in electronics, but even a novice can figure this out.
Remove resistor and solder power wires
I figured the manufacturer uses the same electrical board for a wide range of enclosures and there must be a place for a power switch somewhere on the PCB.
I need to remind you I wrote this after I already modded the enclosures so I’m missing some images in between but you should get the point.
Adding a power switch
I examined the board and paid particular attention to the area around the power connector. A quick measurement with a volt meter revealed a large area that also have trough holes that were soldered closed. Crossing the two pads was a small 1-Ohm SMD resistor.
I de-soldered the resistor and plugged in the board and noticed the LED did not turn on. When I shorted the 2 trough holes (now disconnected via the SMD) I saw the board power up.
SUCSESS! (or Kaplah! for our Klingon readers)
The rest is child’s play really. Now that we have the on/off part of the board working it is a simple matter of wiring a little power switch. I grabbed two switches from my box o’ stuff and measures its size to make a hole in the aluminum part of the enclosure.
Cutting a hole is where you can FUBAR the entire project. Take some extra care when positioning the switch. Initially I wanted to place them vertically but when I double-checked (be sure to always DOUBLE CHECK!) I noticed that the switch would not clear the board on the inside. There was enough room if the switch was oriented horizontally… so the rest is self-explanatory.
To make the initial hole I used a Dremel with a worn-down cutting disk (a reduced diameter makes for precision cutting). A quick trim with a scalpel blade (or needle file) made the switch fit properly and then I soldered on two wires to the switch and connected them to the board.
Cut a hole and thread the wires through
Note that you will want to thread the wires through the hole before they are soldered, else you won’t be able to fit the switch anymore (depending on the switch type, but valid in this case). When put back together, everything looks like it came from the factory. I plugged in the power and eSATA cable and enjoyed my new, improved hard drive enclosure (now with on/off capability).
It really didn’t take that much effort to do this mod. Painting took less than two minutes (without drying time). Inspecting the board took three minutes, and de-soldering the resistor only took another few minutes. And of course slapping an OCmodshop decal only makes you look more boss. Cutting the holes in the enclosure and testing took the most amount of time.
All in all, 15 Euros ($20) and about a half-hour of time, and you too can have your own personalized and modded hard drive enclosure that boosts throughput up to 500%.
HAH! Beat that!