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General Software Discussion / Re: $20 if you make me a 6' Molex cable. $10 for recommending a better solution.
« on: July 17, 2009, 11:46 PM »
How come your drive is eating so much power to begin with?
My external HD enclosure came with a power supply that delivered 12Volt and 1.5Ampere as output. That would make 18 watt and it was not bigger than wall charger for a cell phone. Building a power supply with high voltage is rather simple and cheap, but if it has to deliver a decent amperage...
The hard drive in that enclosure was an IDE Western Digital Caviar 160GByte 7200rpm. Ran nice for four years with the original power supply (in ambient temperatures from 40 degrees Celsius and above). Putting a faster 10000rpm drive in an external enclosure seems overkill as you would hit the bandwidth limit of the USB channel you are using and it does not require that much more power.
50 to 80 Watts, it seems a lot to me. Dividing 80Watts with 12Volt results in a device that uses 4 to 6 Ampere. Has it a double function as electrical heater? Or as a cigarette lighter similar to the ones found in old cars? A standard ATX power supply like my own 350Watts power supply requires about 10Ampere (at full capacity) from the electrical grid it is connected to.
My external HD enclosure came with a power supply that delivered 12Volt and 1.5Ampere as output. That would make 18 watt and it was not bigger than wall charger for a cell phone. Building a power supply with high voltage is rather simple and cheap, but if it has to deliver a decent amperage...
The hard drive in that enclosure was an IDE Western Digital Caviar 160GByte 7200rpm. Ran nice for four years with the original power supply (in ambient temperatures from 40 degrees Celsius and above). Putting a faster 10000rpm drive in an external enclosure seems overkill as you would hit the bandwidth limit of the USB channel you are using and it does not require that much more power.
50 to 80 Watts, it seems a lot to me. Dividing 80Watts with 12Volt results in a device that uses 4 to 6 Ampere. Has it a double function as electrical heater? Or as a cigarette lighter similar to the ones found in old cars? A standard ATX power supply like my own 350Watts power supply requires about 10Ampere (at full capacity) from the electrical grid it is connected to.