
If you've owned computers long enough, you probably have a spare hard drive or two hanging around. Perhaps you've upgraded your notebook from hard drive to SSD or pulled an 80GB drive from a now-useless desktop. At Computex, Rosewill showed off a couple of new enclosures that can easily turn your old hard drives into external storage devices you can use to back up or hold all your media files.
Expected to retail for around $40 when it releases later this summer, the RDDO-12001 features two different SATA bays that can accomodate either 3.5-inch drives from your desktop or 2.5-inch drives from your laptop. On the back side sits both a USB 3.0 port and an eSATA port so, if you do have a speedy 7,200 rpm drive or SSD in one of the slots, you won't be limited by a slow USB 2.0 connection. A power button allows you to turn the RDDO-12001 on or off while a series of status lights on the front show you which drive is transferring data, whether the enclosure is powered and whether it's connected to your computer.
If you have just one 2.5-inch drive, you'd be better off with Rosewill's as-yet-unnamed screwless enclosure. Once you pop the attractive brushed metal enclosure open, you can insert any notebook hard drive. A USB 3.0 port on the back provides both power and data so you don't need to carry a separate AC cord. When we held the drive in our hands, we were impressed with its premium feel though popping open the enclosure was a bit of a hassle. No word yet on pricing.
Check out the gallery and hands-on video below to get a closer look at Rosewill's new RDDO-12001 and single-drive, screwless enclosure.