external/internal use

[Russ88765]

Hey all, been awhile since my last visit. This may be a rather obvious question, but can you use an external hard drive as an internal one? I'm seeing on newegg some 4tb externals sold at approximately 1/5th the price of a same size internal. It got me thinking why not just convert the externals and save a load of money?

 

[johnb35]

Some externals can't be striped down to standard drive that you can hook up as a regular hard drive. So it could be difficult finding one that you can use like that.

 

[Russ88765]

What if you have the right cables to connect the drive to your motherboard?

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

Every hard disk drive (HDD) and every solid state drive (SSD) on this planet can be used either as internal drive or external drive.
Some external drives come in enclosure/HDD case (or however you wanna call it) so you will need to take it out of it in order to be able to properly connect it to the motherboard.

And yes...if you have the cables then you can connect the drive to the motherboard just fine.

NOTE: On some old motherboards you might need to use the PATA to SATA converter...for example if you want to connect the SATA drive to a motherboard which only supports PATA.

But no matter what the conditions are...it is ALWAYS possible to connect ANY drive to ANY motherboard.
And wether the converters are needed or not...that really depends on your drive and the motherboard.

Here is my simple case.I have a 15 years old PC and I wanted to use internal SATA drive.However my motherboard supports PATA only so I used the following converter chip to accomplish my task:

This is the EXACT chip I am using!
And it's cheap as hell and ALSO it supports conversions from PATA to SATA and from SATA back to PATA and it can be used to convert any PATA or SATA HDD drive,any SATA SSD drive,any PATA or SATA CD/DVD-ROM drive on various ways such as:

2.5 or 3.5 PATA HDD ---> 2.5 or 3.5 SATA HDD

(Yes 2.5 HDD drive CAN be used as an internal drive in desktop computers if you want).

or

PATA CD/DVD-ROM drive ---> SATA CD/DVD-ROM drive

And so on...there are no limitations.

Oh and...if someone tells you that these converters never work,don't listen to them lol.Because they work perfectly fine if you do things right.





Cheers!

 

[voyagerfan99]

Every hard disk drive (HDD) and every solid state drive (SSD) on this planet can be used either as internal drive or external drive.

You clearly don't work with different types of externals. Not every drive can be stripped from an external and be used internally.

 

[zeppelin04]

I do know that my seagate external did work without any need for adapters of any kind. Took the 1tb out and put it in my desktop with no problems.

 

[Russ88765]

Interesting... I feel a lot better about investing in a bigger drive in the future if the need arises.