Colleagues,
Does anyone know of an alternative to help me deal with my "landfill" of external drives?
I have too many drives that use USB connections. They are mostly USB v2,0 with a type-A male host connector and a male "mini-B" — looks like a house — enclosure connector. Sadly, the supplied cable has a dual-head USB-A to present enough 5 VDC power to run a 2.5inch enclosure and drive. It appears that the dual-A cable will deliver 2x 500 mA or 1000 mA at 5 VDC.
A casual survey of laptops suggests that USB-anything other than USB-C or Thunderbolt™ are in very short supply. A dual-head USB-A — regardless of the USB version — becomes problematic. Workstations present their own set of issues. The dual-head cables sadly offer only a short link between the two USB-A connectors.
It seems to me that any recent USB v3.1 or v3.2 host port would supply all the needed current (power) with a single connection with either USB-A or USB-C. That leaves the need for a cable with a USB v2.0 mini-B male connector for the enclosure. Given that the two-headed snake supplies power and also connects for data, I don't think that any sort of mini-B adapter will work well.
Some Background
- The USB 2.0 specification allows Hosts to deliver 5V at 500 mA, for a total power output of 2.5 watts.
- USB 3.0 and 3.1 allow 5V at 900 mA (4.5W).
- USB-C cables must be able to carry a minimum of 3 A (3000 mA) current (at 5 V, for 15 W) but some can carry 5 A (5000 mA) current (at 20 V, for 100 W).
- USB-PD (Power Delivery) at 240 watts would more that meet the need of a drive & enclosure
- USB Summary from Toms Haardware site
- 2.5” SATA drives use 5V while the M. 2 specification calls for 3.3V with a typical ±5% tolerance. In practice, the former will not exceed about 1.5A, or 7.5W, while the latter is designed for around 2-2.5A (2000-2500 mA) but often peaks at about 3A (3000 mA), or up to 10W, with the voltage having a tolerance of ±5%.
Thank you in Advance,
~~~ 0;-/ Dan
