Adding an External Hard Drive - External Enclosure Method

If you are looking for an easy way to add another hard drive to your system, an external enclosure system might be the way to go. I needed extra space to externally store backups of important files and a growing archive of disk-consuming digital photos.

There are several methods to solve such a problem. After discussing such options at my favourite local computer shop, I decided on a Zynet External Enclosure fitted with an 80GB Seagate Hard Drive. This is a fairly simple solution that allows you to slip a standard hard drive into an elegant, desk-friendly case and plug it into your computer via USB or FireWire. Once the new hard drive is formatted, it should register as an extra drive on your machine and you can add, change, create and delete files in the normal way. An advantage of an external enclosure system is that you can change the hard drive with a minimum of fuss if you need even more space or if the original goes belly-up. And you don't have to delve into the innards of your system to do it!

During assembly

Up and running