Reddit reviews Sabrent USB 2.0/ESATA TO 3.5 Inch IDE or SATA/SATA II Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure Case with Cooling Fan (EC-UEIS7)
We found 6 Reddit comments about Sabrent USB 2.0/ESATA TO 3.5 Inch IDE or SATA/SATA II Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure Case with Cooling Fan (EC-UEIS7). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Supports any Standard 3.5 inch Serial ATA or IDE Hard DriveUltra Light Aluminum CaseEasy access on PC or NotebookSupports 480Mbps high-speed data transfersBuilt in Cooling Fan to reduce Heat,Hot-swappable,Supports Wakeup abilityRequirements : Windows 98SE/2000/ME/2003/XP/Vista/win 7/8 MAC OS XSupports hard drives up to 2TB.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001PHLMAE/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?qid=1420677923&sr=8-7&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70
Something like this. It takes a internal hard drive for a pc and makes it an external hard drive. I did this cause I wanted to make sure my hard drive ran at 7200 rpms.
Might be better to get one that does both SATA and IDE, which should be around the same price, but that is the general idea of what oyu are looking for.
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Aluminum-Enclosure-Cooling-EC-UEIS7/dp/B001PHLMAE/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=sabrent+usb+drive+enclosure&qid=1567105565&s=gateway&sr=8-14
That is the one I have. Lets me pull my PS3 hard drive as well to dump saves and such if the system dies, which it currently is in the middle of, only being usable about 5 minutes at a time. Also good for when a friend has a dead laptop and wants data from the hard drive.
There's also combo enclosures that accept both ide and sata: link
> Would a cooling dock be ok if I decided to use a mechanical...
An enclosure like this would probably work best. The cooling dock could get the job done if you have a metal enclosure or one with holes that allow air to pass through, though.
> Forgive my ignorance but is it possible to boot from a ssd only and access my home folder and files from a separate mechanical
Yep! You could even (slowly) boot from an SD card if you wanted. Just install the OS to the drive you want to boot from and format the other one as HFS+.
That uses an IDE port (PATA). Since your mobo doesn't have that connection you can either get an adapter card or an IDE 3.5" external enclosure.
WD Red internal HDD - $119
External HDD Enclosure - Or something like this. $25