External Hard Drive Enclosure Recommendations???

Question

External Hard Drive Enclosure Recommendations???

My 2010 Macbook Pro 13.3" 2.4 GHz just died (model: A1278, S/N: 340453TTATM). Apple repair guy says its the logic board. My Apple Care just ended last month, so I'm SOL. They said the hard drive looked fine. I plan on selling the laptop as is without the hard drive. We just purchased a 27" iMac 3.2 GHz. I am wondering if there is a particular external hard drive enclosure that I could buy to get my data off the old 250 gb hard drive and onto the new 1tb hard drive.

Will any 2.5" enclosure work? Does it have to be Mac? Is an "enclosure" and a "caddy" and a "sleeve" the same thing? 2.0 vs 3.0 USB? I use Amazon a lot and there are so many different ones. I want to make sure I get one that is compatible with what I have.

Any suggestions/recommendations are much appreciated! Thanks!

MacBook Pro, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Feb 1, 2014 8:13 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

BobRz

Level 5

6,138 points

Feb 2, 2014 3:59 AM in response to dudeseriously

An enclosure is what you want. You may as well go with USB 3.0 as they're backwards compatible to 2.0.

http://www.amazon.com/Screw-Less-ORICO-2588US3-External-Enclosure/dp/B00B0RD2RA/ ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1391342179&sr=8-3&keywords=usb+3.0+enclosure+2.5

You should know that you may have an option called "depot repair" on your MBP. It's around $300 and you end up with a fixed machine. Call Apple support and ask about it, or check at the store. They don't seem to just offer, you have to ask.

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Answer 2

Feb 3, 2014 7:12 PM in response to dudeseriously

BobRz,

Thanks for the input on the enclosure, I just ordered one!

In regards to the depot repair, I contacted Apple support and they said it would be $300 for them just to look at it. It would cover up to $180 in parts. Anything over that would be additional $$$ on top of the $300. So if it was a logic board, I would pay the $300 upfront, ship it to the depot repair, then (assuming it was a $400 logic board), I would have to pay an extra $220. So I'd be paying $520 for a new logic board. In addition, it was something more than just the logic board, say $1000 in parts, and I chose not to have them fix it, I would still be out the original $300! They said that they did not offer a "flat rate" repair service.

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Answer 3

Feb 3, 2014 7:29 PM in response to dudeseriously

HD docks and enclosures are a necessity really.

glad you got recommended a good one, because 95% of them are pure JUNK

in the future, consider grabbing a HD dock too

$40

HD docks will fit both 2.5" HD and 3.5", perfect for either HD clones or data storage

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