Anyone ever inside a LaCie firewire external hard drive?

[thedelihaus]

I've got a pair of 4 year old LaCie Firewire external hard drives- 160gb.

I'd like to put a bigger hard drive in them. But I don't want to crack 'em open yet.

Anyone ever been inside one? What kind of drive? SATA? Or other perchance?

[whoaru99]

No, but from four years ago I'd say the probability is PATA since SATA was just coming out in 2003.

I've got a 500Gb WD My Book that has lots of vents in it so one can see inside fairly well. There ain't much in there except for the HDD and the USB controller/power supply board.

[Andyman]

Those are pretty small, so it's gotta be a laptop drive inside.
We had a guy pimp us at work on one by swapping a 160 into his 250 and returning it. Or alt least that's what the vendor claims.

[Stoffie]

Usually not much inside, just a controller board with connections to the HD and that's it, as the actual power supply is usually external with things like that. Will be indeed PATA as I am sure four years ago external SATA housings were not available yet.

Crack it open, replace harddisk with larger PATA (IDE) harddisk, and that's that. Format in windows and you are set :)

[thedelihaus]

Those are pretty small, so it's gotta be a laptop drive inside.
We had a guy pimp us at work on one by swapping a 160 into his 250 and returning it. Or alt least that's what the vendor claims.

i'm sure it's a 3.5. Indeed, a small enclosure, but that's due to no fan and an external power supply.

No, but from four years ago I'd say the probability is PATA since SATA was just coming out in 2003.

I've got a 500Gb WD My Book that has lots of vents in it so one can see inside fairly well. There ain't much in there except for the HDD and the USB controller/power supply board.

Usually not much inside, just a controller board with connections to the HD and that's it, as the actual power supply is usually external with things like that. Will be indeed PATA as I am sure four years ago external SATA housings were not available yet.

Crack it open, replace harddisk with larger PATA (IDE) harddisk, and that's that. Format in windows and you are set :)

PATA- I'll double check to be sure. But yesh, sounds like that's what it is.

[Mystic Pixel]

Yeah, these things are pretty much just a small circuit board, with a stock USB-to-IDE bridge chip, associated interfacing electronics, and some power conversion stuff (generally to step down the 12V from the external brick to 5V for the drive.) Shouldn't really be any reason why you can't swap out the actual drive.