Friday, July 30, 2010

Laptop Hard Drive Enclosures

I recently helped a friend restore their data from a laptop. A simple spill, and the computer would not start. I had an enclosure in my box of computer peraphernalia, though not the type I needed for the Dell 2.5" SATA drive, so I ordered two by way of/from Amazon.com, as they were cheap and I wanted the opportunity to compare.

The boxes contain similar aluminum enclosures, Y-cables (USB for the generic and microUSB for the StarTech), tiny screws, and tiny screwdrivers, though the overall effect is quite different. The StarTech came in the much smaller package, which was stiffer and felt more solid than the generic. On the downside, and the inspiration for this entry, the device was brightly logo'd on both sides, while the generic nearly plain metal. A company could buy these in bulk and print their information on each case, as a distribution and version-control channel for media, data, and so on. Between overnight mail and the diminishing cost of small hard drives, an effective super broad-band delivery network could save costs for a large tier of smaller technology and media business operations.

The delivery network itself should optimally map an address to online content(lists) and next-day air cash-on-delivery the extended resources.