The theory being to take the entire hard drive with you in case the computer is stolen. Ideally a very light thin hard drive like one would find in a laptop. To clarify, not an external hard drive...but an internal hard drive that is easily removable and re installable...pull it out, shove it in. Does such a computer exist or do I have to DIY a "hot swap" situation ? 3GB would be large enough.
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Office computer with easily removable primary hard drive ?
- Thread starter Milacron
- Start date
- Replies 49
- Views 8,963
Mud
Diamond
- Joined
- May 20, 2002
- Location
- South Central PA
Would a hot swap drive bay serve the purpose? Or is that not what you are asking?
Icy Dock DuoSwap 2.5"/3.5" SATA Hot Swap Drive Caddy Review (MB971SP-B) | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews
Icy Dock DuoSwap 2.5"/3.5" SATA Hot Swap Drive Caddy Review (MB971SP-B) | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews
Atomkinder
Titanium
- Joined
- May 8, 2012
- Location
- Mid-Iowa, USA
Should be fairly easy to set one up. Just attach this inside the case as your primary drive. Also remember to actually shut down the computer when you take it out ;-)
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Masscool SSD SATA Hard Disk Internal Rack - 2.5 & 3.5, Supports Up To 3TB, 5.25 Bay Device Space, Aluminum (MR-3100) at TigerDirect.com
jdavi581
Hot Rolled
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- May 27, 2011
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not sure if something like that is commercially available. I would not think it would be hard to make an adapter to mount the cables so it could be done in the 5.25 bay. At 3 GB I don't think you are talking about a primary drive for Windows at least. I usually have 2 drives, one for the Windows OS, and one for all my programs and stuff. Windows craps out, re-install and work is minimized. Just installed windows 7 on an Asus computer, did not know you could boot from a jump drive. Soon hard drives will be solid state standard, carry your entire computer on a jump drive. But I am sure you know all of this already, I am not a computer guy by anybodys standard.
Joe
Joe
That would work...but does there exist removable primary storage as fast as an internal hard drive that is lighter, smaller, thinner...something that could fit in your shirt pocket ? What is serving as the "hard drive" in a thin tablet computer for example ?
3GB was off the cuff, Windoz XP....ok make it 10 GB ...
Atomkinder
Titanium
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- Mid-Iowa, USA
They use solid state hard drives. Basically an array of chips on a board that treats them as a single entity and divides up storage. I use a 128gb as my primary drive. Boot time is about four seconds from cold to logged in, and I keep most programs on a separate drive, and storage on another one. Storage is cheap these days. You can easily find 2.5" solid state drives. Finding something smaller would be a niche product. Many of those tablets have the storage soldered directly to the controller board, and it's just a single 16gb/32gb/etc. chip.
Edit: You could just buy a 64gb flash drive and run Linux, with Windows XP in Wine or something similar. No hard drive required at all.
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Atomkinder
Titanium
- Joined
- May 8, 2012
- Location
- Mid-Iowa, USA
For instance: Boot and run Linux from a USB flash memory stick | USB Pen Drive Linux
There are other versions out there as well that will do this.
Edit: just found this as well! http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-run-windows-xp-on-a-usb-drive/
I don't know how reliable these may be in bringing big CAD/CAM/Etc. programs with you, though. Just a thought.
There are other versions out there as well that will do this.
Edit: just found this as well! http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-run-windows-xp-on-a-usb-drive/
I don't know how reliable these may be in bringing big CAD/CAM/Etc. programs with you, though. Just a thought.
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Peter Neill
Stainless
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- Apr 30, 2006
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- Suffolk, England
My Dell Precision T7600 has front accessible hot-swappable hard drives.
If you run 2 drives in Raid 1 you could leave one in the system and take one with you.
If you run 2 drives in Raid 1 you could leave one in the system and take one with you.
oldbikerdude37
Titanium
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- Jun 29, 2010
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- milton freewater oregon
Why fiddle with that whole headache when a laptop would do the job. You can set it on a desk, plug in a desktop monitor in no time and have dual screens.
If you want it to fit a pocket then USB stick is the readily available and economic solution.
m98custom1212
Stainless
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- Toledo, Ohio
fixitup
Cast Iron
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- Owensboro, KY
A MacPro with a solid state drive. Drives slide in and out easily. Not as small as a laptop drive, but still portable and if they are solid state they are very durable.
The MacPros have multiple drive bays so one drive can be for applications and another one for all files.
Charles
dstryr
Diamond
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Or just get a laptop workstation? 
Furpo
Aluminum
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- Jan 28, 2010
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- Rice Lake, Wisconsin
For my 2 cents worth:
I’ve 3 or 4 different brands of the removable hard drive trays over the years
and none have stood up to weekly removal let alone daily use.
I’ve ended up throwing them away!
I’ve 3 or 4 different brands of the removable hard drive trays over the years
and none have stood up to weekly removal let alone daily use.
I’ve ended up throwing them away!
m98custom1212
Stainless
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- Aug 1, 2011
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- Toledo, Ohio
That because you most likely didn't buy enterprise drives
Chip Chester
Diamond
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- Dec 13, 2007
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- Central Ohio USA
Current Mac Pro HD carriers aren't going to fit in a pocket, though.
Future Mac Pro HDs will be Thunderbolt, so that'll work...
They make docks for "naked" SATA drives, that you can just plug and go. They're pretty slim, but protection could be a challenge.
Someone (WD?) also makes various species docks/converters for their standard drives.
I would go with a small MacBook Pro, or Air and either an external kbd/monitor setup... Or use it as a "boot to external target" from a deskbound mac. Either way, you can still get to and use the data when you're out of the office.
If only it could be a GPS, too...
Chip
Future Mac Pro HDs will be Thunderbolt, so that'll work...
They make docks for "naked" SATA drives, that you can just plug and go. They're pretty slim, but protection could be a challenge.
Someone (WD?) also makes various species docks/converters for their standard drives.
I would go with a small MacBook Pro, or Air and either an external kbd/monitor setup... Or use it as a "boot to external target" from a deskbound mac. Either way, you can still get to and use the data when you're out of the office.
If only it could be a GPS, too...
Chip
If you are just using it for saving your drawings and cam files. . . why not a flash drive? I just found one on the web with 64 GB more than enough storage for you.
If you are worried about someone taking your email or internet footprints from the computer use a sandboxed web browser and Google incognito function, set up the sandbox to be deleted every day. Both free.
A lot of the big companies make working from home easier using a VPN if you wanna really get secure that is the way to go. More than a few companies have a network set up in a secure location and use a vpn to access it. "Vpn's are what is making the online drug dealer silk roads so difficult to catch"
If you are worried about someone taking your email or internet footprints from the computer use a sandboxed web browser and Google incognito function, set up the sandbox to be deleted every day. Both free.
A lot of the big companies make working from home easier using a VPN if you wanna really get secure that is the way to go. More than a few companies have a network set up in a secure location and use a vpn to access it. "Vpn's are what is making the online drug dealer silk roads so difficult to catch"
CBlair
Diamond
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- Sep 23, 2002
- Location
- Lawrenceville GA USA
My old computer had one of those, comes with a set of keys to unlock the drive so it could be removed and stored securely. You can have it if you want it but I dont know how big it was and it is kind of old.
Charles.
Charles.
stelradCoal
Aluminum
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- Feb 8, 2009
- Location
- Winsted, CT
We have these in the military. Standard pc's but they have a hard drive with a key lock. They use them in secret computers so you can pull the drive at night and lock them away in the safe. Not sure of the makers, but they are standard 3.5inch bays with the HD in there. Same place the dvd drive would be on a tower/desktop.
jlevie
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2013
- Location
- Huntsville, AL
Now we are in the area of my daytime job, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X administration...
There are several choices in removable drive enclosures/carriers that accept a standard 2.5" drive. Those, depending on the drive chosen, can be equivalent to an internal 3.5" drive as used in a conventional desktop. I have a bunch of those and 3.5" removable drives (more than ~40) at work that are used daily and frequently removed from the computers and securely stored. The carrier/drive for the 2.5" systems will easily fit in a shirt pocket.
In one sense, though larger, a laptop would be a better choice. A windows disk drive will only work on the motherboard it was installed on or another identical motherboard. The data on drive can be recovered and moved to another windows system, but you can't just connect the drive to a different system and boot up. If in a break-in your shop computer is stolen, there'll be some work involved to recover the data and possibly installation of specialized program on another computer & drive. Couple the laptop with an external monitor/keyboard/mouse at the shop and you have a "portable" desktop computer.
My preference (having extensively used Linux, Windows, and OS X) is for a Mac, especially for a laptop. Extremely rugged & reliable and easy to use (though not cheap) and able to to just about anything the other operating systems can do. With a copy of Parallels installed a Mac can run OS X, Linux/Unix and Windows programs all at the same time.
There are several choices in removable drive enclosures/carriers that accept a standard 2.5" drive. Those, depending on the drive chosen, can be equivalent to an internal 3.5" drive as used in a conventional desktop. I have a bunch of those and 3.5" removable drives (more than ~40) at work that are used daily and frequently removed from the computers and securely stored. The carrier/drive for the 2.5" systems will easily fit in a shirt pocket.
In one sense, though larger, a laptop would be a better choice. A windows disk drive will only work on the motherboard it was installed on or another identical motherboard. The data on drive can be recovered and moved to another windows system, but you can't just connect the drive to a different system and boot up. If in a break-in your shop computer is stolen, there'll be some work involved to recover the data and possibly installation of specialized program on another computer & drive. Couple the laptop with an external monitor/keyboard/mouse at the shop and you have a "portable" desktop computer.
My preference (having extensively used Linux, Windows, and OS X) is for a Mac, especially for a laptop. Extremely rugged & reliable and easy to use (though not cheap) and able to to just about anything the other operating systems can do. With a copy of Parallels installed a Mac can run OS X, Linux/Unix and Windows programs all at the same time.
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