Enclosures that handle "up to 400GB" hard drives - what happens if you stick in a 500MB drive?

[stephen]

I only ask because 320GB and 400 GB ATAs are starting to become less common - for example, I'm seeing most deals right now on 500GB drives.

Would it recognize the first 400GB, or just not work at all?

[mattkime]

Sometimes its the limit and sometimes thats just the largest drive they've tested in it.

wanna risk it?

[Mike Sellers]

If an enclosure will recognize 400GBs, then I'm pretty sure it will recognize larger. If it's a fanless enclosure, heat could be a problem though.

[RAMd®d]

500MB should be a piece o' cake.

And 500G should work fine, too.

Like matt says, sometimes that limit is the largest drive tested. And usually that's because that was the largest drive available at the time of testing.

I doubt that there will be any risk involved. I also wonder what the heat delta would be between a 400 and 500G HD. Certainly that info could be tracked down from the manufacturer, if one were so inclined.

[pRON aHOLIC]

It was probably the biggest size drive at the time of printing. Make sure there is a liberal exchange policy.

[Mr645]

I dont think heat would be an issue. It always seems that newer drives run cooler, even as they spin faster then run cooler then older drives that are slower

[stephen]

Thanks guys. It's an enclosure I picked up six months ago on a deal, and I'm just looking for a cheap ATA to put in it.

[ho'ard]

My experience:
The drive will show up as the maximum the controller can recognize, and formatting attempts will reult in error.
That's assuming the limitation is accurate and not a random guess.

[OWC Larry]

Some companies firmware limit their enclosures which would be the case if it worked with a 400GB drive, but not a 500GB. Note - over 128GB vs. less than 128GB support is an actual hardware limitation.

Others may only be listing what was tested - do they still offer the model? Have they updated the specs to a larger drive size? Or is this a current enclosure?

And finally - a lot of el cheapo cases come with el cheapo power supplies. Larger capacity drives use more power. While may work, if over drawing on the power supply - that leads to power supply failure.

[viaripatti]

Larry has it right according to what I've read on the issue.
Spike voltage spin-upissues are discussed ALL over the internet with High capacity drives. Apparently Seagate(which I love) take the most power to spin up. Some computers may even have trouble booting if their power supplies can't come up with that initial spin-up voltage-especially if you want to put multiples in there. Search it on the web if you have concerns.