Matt Mc_Carthy wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 WC>> I'd _really_ like it if they made a USB hard drive that was 
 WC>> identical to an internal drive but made it so it was a drop in to 
 WC>> a USB external interface box, a kind of external adapter setup.

 RJT> Are they making them different?  Sticking different electronics 
 RJT> on the drive itself?  I've seen those things advertised,  but 
 RJT> haven't really looked at them price-wise to see how they compare 
 RJT> with regular drives (though sometimes they do seem to get pretty 
 RJT> close) and I have no idea about the innards of them.

 MMC> What's "different" it the external cases!  All fancy gaudy shapes
 MMC> and sizes, and mostly put together with no screws nor any way to
 MMC> find out how to get the innards out without destroying something. 
 MMC> Since most of the drives require +12V, an external adapter must be
 MMC> used also.

Hmm.  Well,  sooner or later somebody in here's gonna get their hands on a
dead one that's out of warranty...     :-)

And those little adapters get to be a pain.  I have a short little
extension cord here,  maybe a foot long,  that I made some time back.  The
plug goes into an outlet strip (one of many I seem to have pretty filled up
on this mess of a desk) and the other has _three_ of those adapters plugged
into it,  one for the speakers on the linux box,  one for the modem on the
fw/r,  and one for the dust buster that's mounted over there.

There is also another one for the other set of speakers,  one for the modem
that the bbs uses,  and one for the hub.  That's all I can remember
offhand,  but sure ain't all of them in here!

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