[shmerek]

Does anyone know where to find and external case for a hard drive that has a ide connection? I am not looking for a usb or firewire to ide enclosure only something for a direct IDE connection. Thanks!

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I don't believe there is any such thing. IDE doesn't really offer any sort of direct external option that I know of. You could Jerry-rig something together probably, and hang IDE cables outside your Mac, run them to an external case of some kind, but you'd have to figure out how to power the drives. iDE cables don't run very long either.. by the time you thread them outside your Mac and into an external case and hooked up to a drive, you're talking only a few inches of slack. Not to mention, to run 2 IDE drives off the same cable, you're looking at a very slim margin of space to run the cable to multiple externals.

There are IDE removeable racks that allow you to take IDE drives in and out of your computer directly from the front. The trays are removeable, and the main unit remains in the comp. But they are A. not truly external solutions, B. require free drive bays- not readily available on most Macs and C. pretty much come in the choices of beige, beige or ugly beige.

I've got a bunch of these rack drives though, in my PCs and Mac clones. I often just take harddrives with me, between home and work. I just buy new trays by themselves to add drives. If all you're looking for is a mobile hard drive, and have the drive bays (unlikely) then mobile racks work great.

There are a few PCMCIA card interface drives, but only useful if you have a Powerbook or something with a PC card slot, and I think rather slow.

Just curious, why not external Firewire or USB?

[shmerek]

I have an old rev b iMac (no firewire) and and extra hard drive so I wanted to try something like this I have also heard that USB hard drives are super sloooow.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Well, that's pretty much the setup I discribed as well. Looks like you have your manual for doing it! Go for it!

Personally, I think that setup is a bit clunky, but it's semi-functional. Since you were asking about an external case, I'd say put the harddrive inside a mobile rack case tray. They cost about $12 by themselves. You should still have room to attach the cables, and slide the rack tray cover on over the drive.

That's a vast improvement over just leaving the HD laying directly on your desk, completely uncovered as in that example. The risk of damaging static-shock, vibration against the table, jarring which can ruin the heads, and a host of other threats is greatly increased by just leaving the drive out bare.