Hello. I’m resorting to this because I’ve trawled Ebay for months and seen nothing practical. It may not exist, but if it does I bet people here will know about it.
First, the standards I am aiming for:
I have Avastor HDX, which are great, with FireWire and USB3 with a Type B square(ish) USB3 socket. The problem is these drives are big, and take too much power for long jobs with a bank of computers. I also have some older FireWire 400 PATA boxes that I use routinely for low power mass data processing, but they don’t have USB3.
The ideal would be to have both FireWire 400 and USB3 like the Avastor HDX, complete with a solid USB3 socket like they do, but this is likely impossible. All the things I see on Ebay are a joke, with silly, thin and flimsy connectors. I’ve seen more stability and solidity in a punnet of strawberries..
The newer computers I intend to use as a processing bank do not have FireWire, which eases the restrictions for an ideal enclosure, but a full size USB3 type B socket is a MUST, and even this seems to be impossible to buy in a small buss-powered enclosure for a 2.5 inch hard disk.
If this is NOT impossible, please list things I should be looking at. Any good suggestions that can improve the SNR on Google and especially Ebay will help, but specific devices are an even better guide. (Naming conventions for USB connectors various are especially egregious, so I need better ways to set filters on searches.)
I don’t think you’re going to find any 2.5" drive enclosures with a USB3 type C connector because the connector is bigger than the enclosure would be.
There are a ton of enclosures that use the USB3 micro B connector, that’s probably what you will need to look into. You might find some with a USB-C connector but those seem to be less common.
Firewire has been dead for quite a while, you’re not likely to find any 2.5" enclosures with that but there are still a few FW800 3.5" enclosures out there. They won’t be bus powered but some might take a 2.5" disk and with an adapter will take a 2.5" disk.
Thanks for the reply. I’m ok for FireWire, I already have small buss-powered boxes for PATA disks, it’s just that these won’t work on the later computers I bought, so I’m looking for the closest match using USB3 (and SATA, though PATA is acceptable for this case, if it exists in some older enclosures that can still be had).
For me, the USB ‘micro’ connector is a nonstarter. It has to be type B, full size. It may be rare but it can’t be impossible, it just means that the box would need to be fatter than is usual for a 2.5 inch box, which might be ideal, it would be more solid, stable… I will only consider the new symmettrical Type C if I get desperate. I’d prefer Type A, or a captive cable (if it’s rugged enough).
Your idea of the adapter is good, I can do that with my Avastors to fit a small disk to save power, but the problem is that it still needs twice as many mains cables and sockets. With a bank of computers, that’s a big deal…
I’d prefer Type A, or a captive cable (if it’s rugged enough).