Is there such a thing as a good solid, 2.5 inch enclosure...

[bazookaman]

...that DOESN'T use screws? Or any other kind of fasteners?

[cbelt3]

I've used an enclosure that are made of two pieces of extruded aluminum and the 'cover' just slides on and off. But there are screws that hold the PC board to the backplane. It was a cheapie sold at MicroCenter, no idea whose. I'd go there (or equivalent) and open some boxes and take a look at how the enclosures are made.

I assume you want something to slide drives in and out of.

[bazookaman]

Yeah. Our sysadmin here just gave me an external to clone my hd and it was in an enclosure he got from the cloning software company (Apricorn I think). Anyway, it has a little "switch" up front that pops the case open and it slides in two. The only thing i DON'T like is the hd is held in place by the SATA and power connectors. Not good for jostling. So the outside is good. But I was thinking of something more secure for the inside. Not sure if such an animal exists.

[cbelt3]

I use a skeleton bare drive to usb adapter gizmo for bench work.

[decay]

I have two of these Maxtor OneTouch 4 Minis

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Maxtor+On...own/5137/1

They open without the needs for screws

[Black]

Interface needs?

[flareslow]

This one doesn't meet your "screwless" criteria, but it is a pretty robust design. I have one and it works well.

MiniPro

[bazookaman]

Black wrote:
Interface needs?

USB 2 (or 3) and/or FW400 (or 800). Heh. Pretty flexible.

Basically I have several VERY cheap cases that work most of the time but not all the time. I'd like to get 1 or 2 nice solid cases. And if i'm doing so, I'd like to get ones that are easy to open and swap the drive if necessary. I do have a dock that I use at my desk so these would be more for using with my wife's laptop or someone else's machine as an emergency drive type thing.

[DP]

Do you actually need a case? I just bought one of these from our sponsor. I was looking for an enclosure that would work for an IDE/PATA 3.5 but this will work for 2.5's also. Edit: Is this what cbelt has?

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/

[bazookaman]

DP wrote:
Do you actually need a case? I just bought one of these from our sponsor. I was looking for an enclosure that would work for an IDE/PATA 3.5 but this will work for 2.5's also. Edit: Is this what cbelt has?

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/

A) Yes. I'd like a case. Mostly for transport
B) I've had several of those harness dealies over the years. I've never ever had one work reliably. And by that I mean I got them to work maybe 1 out of 50 tries. Those things, IMHO, are a huge YMMV. And my mileage sucked.