Somehow, we’ve gone from casually questioning if we should always purchase further storage to a Mad Max-like hellscape the place we scrabble within the filth for an additional terabyte. If that is going to be our future — and in all seriousness, it doesn’t look far off — there’s a product you should buy that may assist set you up for achievement.
We’ve written about network-attached storage (NAS) drives earlier than, that are great for connecting a single drive to your community. Media professionals invest in RAID, which mixes a handful of storage drives right into a single unit. Soon, we could possibly be tossing out these niceties and focusing more on cheap, bulk storage instead.
When we do, it is perhaps the time for hard-drive docking stations and enclosures to shine.
Used {hardware} is the place the offers at the moment are
In a perfect world, you’d construct a brand new PC, prime to backside: energy provide, motherboard, CPU, GPU, storage, reminiscence. But we all know that costs are hovering on the latter three. For a quick time, exhausting drives had been a solution: slower however cheaper than an SSD, however they could possibly be added to a desktop or purchased as an exterior storage answer. Yet exhausting drive costs have been spiking, too: WD now says that it’s sold out for 2026. Yes, the corporate will nonetheless promote client exhausting drives, however the bulk of its manufacturing output goes to AI hyperscalers, the place the true cash is at.
Sergei Starostin / Pexels
But there’s nonetheless a distinct segment alternative for many who are prepared to maintain their eyes open: used {hardware}. Specifically the sort bought at authorities auctions or on Facebook Marketplace. Sure, it’s a threat, however one which may simply repay.
If you’re a PC gamer, you in all probability know that you could run games from the Steam gaming service from various locations, even an external drive. You’ll profit from a sooner drive with a sooner interface, like an SSD. In the worst case, you’ll be able to retailer your Steam video games on the slower, exterior storage after which transfer them over to an inner SSD once you need to play them. It’s a course of that can require a couple of minutes to maneuver the sport after which for Steam to confirm it, but it surely works. It’s just like the best way Microsoft’s Xbox Series X works: You should run the Series X video games from an accredited inner or exterior SSD, however you’ll be able to retailer them on an exterior exhausting drive.
Here’s the factor: You don’t want to purchase an internal or external SSD, and even an exterior exhausting drive in a pleasant little bundle. Pretty a lot any inner exhausting drive will do so far as a hard-drive docking station goes, and that’s a possibility to snap up low cost storage that your neighbors don’t learn about.
This may not be the most effective instance (these have unrecoverable sectors), however I used to be capable of finding somebody promoting just a few exhausting drives within the Bay Area on a budget in just some minutes. (Used {hardware} comes with some dangers: Even drives that is perhaps working completely now is perhaps close to the top of their service life. You may ask the vendor for the manufacturing date and even to run a utility like CrystalDiskMark to try to determine how lengthy the drive has been powered on, however the vendor may not know or be prepared to try this.)
Foundry
Consider, for instance, $80 for 13TB of exterior storage. Buying new would possibly convey with it an unsullied exhausting drive and better efficiency — however at the next value. Amazon sells a 10TB WD Blue drive for $239.
A tough-drive dock / enclosure is your reply
Connecting these drives to your PC is simpler than you suppose, however we wish an answer that accommodates flexibility above all else. RAID is a terrific technique to protect information, utilizing redundancy, but it surely works finest when the entire drives are the identical capability and efficiency. NAS works splendidly, too, however building something like a media server is a separate undertaking.
So what’s a hard-drive docking station? It could be so simple as a “toaster” mannequin: You take the exterior exhausting drive, slide it right into a slot, after which join the dock to your PC. The PC sees the exhausting drive and its storage, simply as if it had been contained in the PC. Some docks use cubbies to carry the drives, or assist you to screw them in to safe them. Others have the power to clone drives, add NAS capabilities, and so forth.
For me, Cenmate’s 4-bay dock / enclosure ($129, at press time) is an effective purchase, for a number of causes.
First, Cenmate’s dock accommodates 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives, and it’s toolless; a variety of different exhausting drive docks and enclosures require you to screw within the drives. Cenmate’s drives are hot-swappable, identical to eradicating a USB key out of your PC. Second, I choose a dock that matches with the 10Gbps USB-C port on my PC, and this dock does. (Many different docks embrace a 5Gbps interface, and that is perhaps nice for an older exhausting drive. In this case, the 10Gbps interface doesn’t appear to return at a value premium.) Finally, Cenmate’s dock features a cooling fan, although it is perhaps just a little on the loud facet for some.
(My runner-up alternative is Sabrent’s 4-bay USB 3.0 option for $99.95, however I haven’t tried it.) There are different choices which embrace SSD mounts, as properly.
The good factor about these docks are that they’re primarily only a assortment of drives, and little extra. If you’d like, you’ll be able to join them to a media server and make a NAS out of them. Alternatively, you should utilize Windows’s Storage Spaces or an identical program, like UnRAID, and simply flip the a number of drives into a giant pool of storage with a single drive letter for simpler entry — although on this case, a drive failure would possibly take down the storage pool completely. Leaving the drives as particular person drives is safer.
Insurance for the long run
Again, it is a easy manner so as to add storage: You discover a whole lot on a used drive, purchase it, slot it in. Repeat and change.
Fortunately, feral gangs of former IT help employees aren’t roaming the streets. You don’t must “know a guy” to purchase storage, but. But even “overstock” websites are promoting sky-high costs for storage. If you’re the sort of one who retains their eyes out for offers — a drive right here, one other there — a storage dock is insurance coverage in opposition to a future that appears more and more grim.
Buy Cenmate’s $129 hard-drive docking station earlier than an AI firm buys up each exhausting drive on the planet