Convert internal hard drive to external

If your old PC has been left in a closet for a long time but you have bought a laptop and you want to regain access to the data that you had stored in it, we can do it in two ways: put it back into operation and arm ourselves with patience since most likely is that one of the reasons for abandoning it would be its slowness. We can also remove the hard drive and turn it into an external hard drive to access the information that we have stored or use it as an extra storage medium.

Computer sales are still in free fall and much of the blame is on tablets, a small touch device with which we can carry out practically the same functions that until now we carried out with our computerSaving the distances, since obviously we cannot use applications that do not have a version adapted to this type of device, such as Photoshop, Final Cut, Premiere ... but these applications are used by a very small group of users.

But despite the fact that tablets have become our daily bread, a computer will always continue to be needed to store the photographs we take with our mobile device, whether it is a smartphone or tablet. The best option to store all this type of content that we extract from mobile devices is usually external hard drives, since if our computer is affected by a virus or the hard drive is damaged by continuous use We can lose invaluable information that we will not be able to recover in any way, Unless we have a backup of all that content in a cloud storage service.

Types of connections and size of hard drives

First of all, we must take into account the type of connection of our hard drive, since the older ones have a connection of pins called IDE while the latest models offer us a less fragile connection system and where the pins have disappeared, called SATA. You also have to take into account the size of the hard drive. As a general rule, if the hard drive is in a tower, the size of the hard drive will be 3,5 inches, while If the hard drive is extracted from a laptop, the size of the hard drive will be 2,5 inches.

Hard drive or dock enclosure?

Now we must be clear about what we really want to do with the hard drive. If the idea we have is to use it as an external storage system, the best option is to buy a housing to convert the internal hard drive into an external one, with its power supply and USB cable to connect it to the computer. What's more offer us greater portability when it comes to taking it with us anywhere as the hard drive is fully protected.

But if we want to use it sporadically and we also have several hard drives, the best option we can find on the market are docks, a device to which we can connect our hard drive quickly and easily. This device is ideal if we often work with many hard drives and we have to change frequency. What's more it is perfect when we want to clone a hard drive quickly. Here are several links where you can find both hard drive housings and docks to insert hard drives.

Connect the external hard drive or docking station to the computer

Once we have bought the case to convert our hard drive into an external or docking, we must proceed in a different way, since if we have opted for the case, we must mount it before connecting it to our computer. Mounting a box on a hard disk is a very simple procedure that will only take a few minutes, since we only have to adjust the power connection of the hard disk to the case and the connection to the USB port of the case, connection with which we will be able to access the data stored on the hard drive. In the case of docking no installation is required, since we only have to place the hard disk on top of the base, adjust it to fit the connections and it will immediately begin to read its content.

To connect our external hard drive or docking station to our computer, we just have to connect the USB connection of the device to a USB port on our computer. Next we must proceed to connect the device, either housing or docking, to the network, to provide it with electricity so that it can work. Most modern 2,5-inch hard drives do not require an external power supply, as they generally They get the electricity needed to run directly from the USB port, as long as you're 2.0 or higher.

How to access an external hard drive

When we connect a USB stick to our computer, we can see how a new icon automatically appears in the file manager with the name of the device, which we can quickly access by clicking twice on the mouse. To access an external hard drive or a docking station where we have placed the hard drive we want to access, the procedure is exactly the same. In our file manager or Finder (if we do it with a Mac) the name of the hard drive in question that we want to access will appear and pressing twice we will access it as if it were a USB stick.

To consider

• First of all, we must bear in mind that it is quite advisable to rely on the positive opinions of this type of devices that Amazon offers us, since we can find very cheap models that can be a chestnut in the end and spoil or function as a slow way from the start.
• The USB connection dmust be at least 2.0 or higher, since version 1.x is much slower than later ones.
• If the computer to which we are going to connect it has USB 3.0 ports, whose connection is blue, the fastest currently, it is advisable to buy a device of this type compatible with that version of USB, since the transfer of files will be done much faster than with previous versions.
• When connecting a hard drive to a PC, the file system of the same must be taken into account, since if we use a PC hard drive on a Mac or vice versa, it is likely that we cannot access the data, or that we can only read them without the possibility of deleting them or copying more information in it. If the hard drive is empty there is no problem, because from our PC or Mac we can format it so that it uses the compatible file system that best suits our needs.
• The file system more advisable if you regularly change the platform between PC and Mac is ExFat, a file system compatible in both systems and that allow us to read and write information without any limitation.