A new computer usually means that the old hard drive fades into the background, never to be thought of again. Don't let that potential storage space go to waste. Transform the old hard drive into a portable hard drive.Marco Chiappetta, writer for PC World, shares how to convert an old hard drive into a portable hard drive.
It's cheap and easy to make your own portable hard drive from an old PC drive
What to do with the old hard drive you just removed from your laptop or desktop? You could just keep it around as a spare—but installing it into an external enclosure and effectively transforming it into a portable hard drive would be far more useful. You'll be able to access all of the files on the drive at a moment’s notice, but you could also use it for backups or simply transferring data between systems.
Enclosure types
Enclosures that can turn any 2.5” hard disk or solid state drive into an external USB drive are widely available and affordable too.
There are a slew of external enclosures available for hard drives, and pretty much all of them are dirt-cheap—less than $10, in some instances, with the most feature-filled models topping out around $40.You’ll find everything from simple aluminum sleeves to larger multi-drive docks that can connect to a variety of different ports. USB enclosures are by far the most common, but eSATA, Thunderbolt, and Firewire enclosures are available too.
External drive enclosures are fairly simply devices.
Read the entire article It's Cheap and Easy to Make Your Own Portable Hard Drive From an Old PC Drive on PC World.
