iMac hard drive enclosure?

[stevekenson]

So, having replaced my poor, dead iMac G5, I’m looking to do salvage, mainly of the 250 GB hard drive in the old machine (since I can always use more storage). So I turn to the readership of my blog: what are the best resources for do-it-yourself info on removing an internal HD and getting and setting-up an enclosure to use it as an external drive?

Comments

[unseelie23.livejournal.com]

I use ifixit (http://www.ifixit.com/) for takeaparts. Putting the drive in an enclosure is pretty simple though. It's mostly just a matter of determining what sort of drive it is (IDE vs. SATA) and purchasing the proper enclosure.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

True; the only comment I'd make is (a) ensure that you get an enclosure that does a decent job cooling (although you have to balance that against noise), and (b) getting an eclosure with a FireWire connection is probably better and more robust than depending on USB2.

If you're not being right-at-the-moment-now thrifty, and want to plan a bit for the future, then you might want to consider a drobo (http://www.drobo.com/) enclosure. It's gotten good reviews, generally, and helps you get some of the features of a full-blow RAID without some of the hassles. You can add additional storage to the enclosure over time, and with the general good cost of HDDs these days, it might be worth the initial price.

[savageplanet.livejournal.com]

I put one of my old ones in an enclosure for about $40. It's USB 2.0 and ever has flashing lights.

Just open the case, remove the screws on the drive and take the drive out. Here's an image for where you can find it:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/IMacG5guts.png

It's a SATA (Serial ATA) drive so make sure you get the right type of enclosure.