USB 3.0 external Harddisk case for 15mm HDDs (for 3TB, 4TB, 6TB)

youmagine

Human: 2.5 inch hard drives are super convenient because they require only 5 volts from the USB port and no power supply unit is needed. The largest and cheapest per gigabyte of these 2.5" drives come in a thickness of 15mm and use more platters than standard 9.5, 12.5 or 7mm notebook HDDs. Unfortunately, almost no USB3.0 cases on the market support these thicker 15mm hard drives. I recently purchased a Seagate ST4000LM016 4TB drive for RAW files and video backups. I got the single 15mm enclosure that was in stock for it from Raidsonic icybox, but it wouldn't work on my mac. Something must be wrong with the controller that Raidsonic uses. But a Chinese $4 noname USB3.0 case from ebay worked perfectly fine. The Case identifies itself with a USB ID of 0x0621 and a Vendor ID of 0x1f75 (Innostor Co, Ltd.). Because the case only supported 12.5mm HDDs I made a new case to support 15mm drives. I decided to reuse the sturdy aluminium panels of the original external case and just print a new frame as this is most cost-effective and has better looks and thermals compared to a pure 3D printed design. The case can be opened without any tools by pressing the front part and bending the hooks that engage the aluminium panels inside. It took four design changes to get my idea right, but the fifth print now fits perfectly.