Note: This post contains affiliate links.
Hard drives are dirt cheap these days when compared to the prices from times past, especially when you consider the massive sizes of the drives currently on the market.
That’s why many people are choosing to upgrade the hard drives on their existing computers instead of buying an entire new PC.
If you’re one of those who have taken the plunge and upgraded the hard drive in your computer, you might be wondering what you can do with your old drive.
Well, you have several options, but my favorite is converting that old drive into an external USB hard drive. All you need to do is purchase an external USB hard drive enclosure and plug your drive into it. It really is that simple!
External hard drive enclosures used to be a little on the expensive side, but no more. In fact, you can find them on Amazon for less than $10 (click here
Important: Most recent laptop hard drives have SATA connections so any SATA compatible external enclosure will work with them.
However, if your drive was removed from an older computer it’s likely a 3.5 inch drive and/or it could well have different interface (IDE/ATA/PATA, etc.).
If your drive wasn’t removed from a fairly recent laptop you’ll need to purchase an external enclosure that matches the drive.
If you’re unsure about which interface type your drive has, feel free to contact me I’ll help you choose the right one. Simply send me a message containing the brand and model of either the hard drive itself or the computer it was removed from.
While your new external hard drive likely won’t be anywhere near as spacious as one you could buy off the shelf today, it will likely be plenty big enough to store a backup set or two.
Besides, most of us can always use an extra external drive, right? And at around 10 bucks it’s quite a bargain!
Here are a couple of things to consider should you decide to convert your old internal hard drive into an external USB hard drive:
1 – If your computer doesn’t have USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 ports, you can probably add some for about the cost of a good pizza.
2 – After installing the drive in the enclosure and plugging it into your PC, you’ll probably want to reformat it. Simply right-click on the the drive in Windows Explorer / File Explorer and click Format.
Important! Make sure your new drive and its Windows installation is working as it should and That you’ve copied all of your files off the old drive before you format it!
That’s all there is to it! Good luck!
Click here to check out the current selection of External USB Hard Drive Enclosures at Amazon.
Never miss a tip! Click here to sign up for my free Daily Tech Tips Email Newsletter!