Ask Owen

I got my hands on some old computers and now have a collection of hard disks. Is there an easy way I can connect them to my computer without having to mess around with screws and caddies?

We’ve all had the need to hook up a temporary hard disk to our computer (well, I have, I don’t know about you), and this question came from someone who had a whole stack of disks he needed to transfer files from. If it had been a single disk, or a more permanent arrangement, I would have recommended a caddy you can mount disks in which could connect to your computer’s USB port.

Here’s something a bit more permanent you could use. It’s an external drive bay that you can slot drives into, called the Cavalry SATA 2-Bay USB 2.0 Dock. It takes up to 2 disks which slot right into it. The device hooks up to your USB drive giving you direct access to the material on the disks. The bays are hot-swappable (you can add/remove disks without having to power the unit off), and can show up on your computer as one big disk.

The item is current on sale from Buy.com at $35 (with free shipping to the US), which includes the bay, but not any disks you may need for it.

Check it out!

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