A question about external hard drive enclosures

[philmar]

Recently I upgraded my pc and as a result I upgraded all my external backup drives to USB 3.0 drives. As a result I have an old 1 TB USB 2.0 external collecting dust that I want to give to the wife. She also has an old USB 2.0 external drive so I thought for fun I’d remove my old external drive from its housing and slap it in a cheap USB 3.0 drive enclosure to give her a faster backup as she has a couple of available USB 3.0 ports on her computer. Having never done this before I was somewhat set back by the myriad of options available for me when looking at drive enclosures.
I know my old drive is a 3.5” drive and that I seek an enclosure with an external interface of USB 3.0. But the enclosures vary depending on the internal interface. I’m not sure if I am to pick an eSATA, SATA or SATA1-3 internal interface.
This is the old drive I am prying open:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136299
Does anyone know what enclosure internal interface I require? And will this old WD Elements drive also work on a USB 3.0 docking station?

 

[Cerb]

eSATA is not and internal interface. The little e stands for external. For an old 1TB HDD, likely 5400 RPM, just about any USB 3.0 bridge will be faster than the HDD it is attached to. 1.5Gbps, 3Gbps, or 6Gbps SATA support won't make a bit of difference.

 

[philmar]

Thanks cerb,
So i rule out eSATA because this is an external port on motherboards.

But when selecting a drive enclosure I have to choose the internal interface. So this old drive will work in any drive enclosure?

 

[Cerb]

But when selecting a drive enclosure I have to choose the internal interface. So this old drive will work in any drive enclosure?

Yes, so long as it is SATA internal, not PATA. Only the latest drives can actually be limited by 1.5Gbps, and not by much (only for large sequential transfers). For a model a few years old, it won't make a difference at all, plus there is still overhead with USB.