How to Use Old HDDs as External Drives

☀️ When replacing a hard drive or an entire machine, it can be very convenient to use old HHDs in an external drive enclosure.

Using Old HDDs as External Drives
Using an external enclosure that matches the size of your old hard drive (typically 3.5 or 2.5 inches), and provides the appropriate interface (typically SATA, or “m.2” for newer SSDs), you can convert your old internal drive into an external USB drive. Installation is typically very simple, and once complete gives you access to all the data already on the drive for recovery, or you can erase the drive to start with a new, empty, external hard drive.

Updates, related links, and more discussion: https://askleo.com/4768

🔔 Subscribe to the Ask Leo! YouTube channel for more tech videos & answers: https://go.askleo.com/ytsub

✅ Watch next ▶What’s the Best Upgrade for an Older Machine?  ▶ What’s the Best Upgrade for an Older ...

Chapters
0:00 Old HDDs as External Drives
1:40 Physical drive sizes
2:16 Interface
3:38 The external drive enclosure
5:10 Installation
8:02 Data on external drives

❤️ My best articles: https://go.askleo.com/best
❤️ My Most Important Article: https://go.askleo.com/number1

More Ask Leo!
☑️ https://askleo.com to get your questions answered
☑️ https://newsletter.askleo.com to subscribe to the Confident Computing newsletter.
☑️ https://askleo.com/patron to help support Ask Leo!
☑️ https://askleo.com/all-the-different-... for even more!

#askleo #external #drive

• #science_technology
• #how_to_use_old_hdds_as_external_drives
• #askleo
• #ask_leo
• #old_hdds_as_external_drives
• #old_hard_drive_as_external_drive
• #old_hhd_drive
• #use_old_hhd_drive
• #use_old_hhd_drive_enclosure
• #put_old_hhd_drive_in_enclosure
• #can_i_use_my_old_hhd_drive
• #can_i_use_my_old_hhd
• #hhds_in_enclosures
• #hhd_and_external_enclosure
• #hook_hhd_drive_to_my_computer
• #hook_old_hhd_drive_to_my_computer
• #how_do_i_use_my_old_hhd_drive