Make Your Own 120 GB Portable Hard Drive in Less than Rs. 2500

speed_portablePortable storage technology has evolved abruptly in recent couple of years. As Chinese products jumped into local market, high capacity flash drives have become very much common.

I still remember when, for the first time, I saw someone using flash drive; back then I actually didn’t know what it was (2002 or 2003 I think). And now every Tom, Dick and Harry has got a flash drive.

Talking about hard drives and flash drives, external storage of high capacity in lesser cost is still what everyone wants. And here we got a desi method of getting a portable drive of our own, with affordable price tag.

Making Your Own Portable Drive:

This method comes handy for those who have plans to shift from rotating media drive to SSD (solid state disk) or bigger hard drives. Here are things you gonna need!

Things you need:

  • One used 120GB rotating media 2.5” (laptop’s) hard drive Average price is approximately Rs. 2000.
  • Portable hard drive case that comes equipped with a USB 2.0 pin attached. Average Price range is Rs. 250 to Rs. 800

It takes less than a minute or so to fix your hard drive in the case and you are about to make a portable drive of your own in couple of minutes.

P.S. Portable hard drive case will have data and power pins, simply plug them in with the hard drive and you are done.

(Pictures attached at the end of the post will help you to setup)

Advantages:

  • Very much cost effective, as 16GB USB flash drive will cost you around 2000 and using this method you can create your own 120GB portable USB drive (not available in market in this size).
  • It works the same way as any other USB drive, i.e. plug and play.
  • Another feature that it incorporates is, you can have your partitions intact. As in case of flash drives and memory cards, your computer reads only first active partition but here all partitions will work.
  • Very fast data transfer speed as compared to flash drive (v2.0)
  • Can be used as a backup drive for large data.
  • Larger storage capacity.

Disadvantages:

  • Bigger in size as compared to flash drive.
  • Vibrations, that may increase if fitting is loose.
  • Rotating media inside, so you have to be careful while in operation and movement.

Please note that I am in no way comparing this drive with flash drives, nor promoting it in anyway over flash drives. Yet these drives come handy when you consider size to cost ratio. Moreover you have to be careful about purchasing used hard drive from market – make sure it’s in good working condition with no bad sectors on it.

Following are the pictures that may help you in getting the idea more clear.

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IMG_20110731_171804IMG_20110731_171845

IMG_20110731_171927IMG_20110731_171950

IMG_20110731_172036IMG_20110731_172409


  • Wht a useless post?
    its like telling sum1 how to connect the charger to a mobile, or connect keyboard to a computer

    • So you already have one?

      If something is not new for you, that doesn’t mean it is same for others. Atleast I am going to make one myself.

      BTW useless example, “its like telling sum1 how to connect the charger to a mobile, or connect keyboard to a computer”

      • Agreed. I believe any one having any exposure to computers would know it already… and those who dont have any exposure wouldnt try it any way.

        BTW, this external casings dont work as efficiently as lets say WD Passports or WD Elements, I tried it once and then threw my home made HDD for a branded WD Drive, which is way more reliable

        “This method comes handy for those who have plans to shift from rotating media drive to SSD (solid state disk)” <— & how does this help in shifting to SSD?

  • And If you are wondering what is the purpose of two USB connections for one cable (in second picture) this is because of the fact that few computers, mostly ones with front USB panels are not able to provide enough voltage for the operation of the hard drive.

    So second cable works as power cord. In case your drive is not functional by one.

  • Old but nice method … I already have tried This one …. I tried with 500GB PC HDD

  • Its great idea, donot troll here as author has already told you about its disadvantages.

  • That hardisk in the pics doesnt seems to me a laptop sized hard disk plus i didnt understand the procedure which u want to eloborate in pic no 3 4 5 and 6!!!!!

    • Vikki it actually is.

      Picture 3 and 4 show both sides of the connector whereas picture 5 shows connector attached with the hard drive.

      Whereas sixth picture is hard drive attached with connector, its empty casing, and it protector/pouch that comes with the case.

      And to confirm the size, please refer to last two pictures where size is compared with a normal ball pen and then HTC HD2 =D

  • I am already using it from 6 years…
    Start from 8 GB and now 500 GB :-)
    I bought used Laptop HDD and make my own Portable USB HDD
    Great Post man

  • in this regard i need some explainatry help from you sir …can i??? please do contact at my mailing adress if u can …

  • THIS HARDDRIVE CASE IS NOT DURABLE AND SHOCK PROOF. MY FRIEND WASTED ONE SUCH HARD DRIVE USING THIS METHOD.
    BETTER BUY A NEW ONE WITH PROPER BRAND, COST OF 512GB IS AROUND 5000/-

  • Although I knew this method but still good post.
    One question though

    What material the enclosure is made?

  • plz answer that
    when we use it as a USB then it still needs power from adapter????

  • @Fakhre alam kooooooooool dear nice shot brother its my badluck i bought it before 1 year any ways my harddisk shape is so unique and nice but not 1 TB :p by the way you are serious,where you buy it from pakistan or from other country

  • ok. first of all who on earth goes around with 120GB hard drives? that would get filled up in 2 days! plus when u see that a 1TB external hard drive is around 8500, I dont think it is worth it to actually ‘build’ an un-shock-proofed, unbranded drive. sorry, FAIL!!!

  • Salams,

    I have pulled Hard Drive from my Sony Vaio Laptop and tried to connect it with USB connector like you posted above with another laptop , it shows drive’s make and volume but not its data . Drive property shows it as a “Dynamic” disk .

    Help . . . plz

  • From Where I can get all these devices in the above mentioned rates, Please specify the address and telephone number. Thanks


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