Friday evening. Silence in the apartment is disturbed only by the occasionally waking-up Oka fridge and occasional clicks of the keyboard and mouse. I decided not to go anywhere, but to watch a long-postponed film, to read, finally, my friend for the last month, to write a couple of personal letters ... In general, I wanted to take a break from living people who had so much in a week that it becomes scary. Suddenly, the idyll is broken by a doorbell. The body, sluggishly responding to the commands of the brain, moves into the hallway. The call does not stop, and the fists involuntarily clench. Whoever stood there, now at least a lecture awaits him on how badly to disturb people on Friday evening. Behind the door is a neighbor from the lower floor. His name is Kolya, he has a hard drive in his hands, and it is written on his face that he will not leave here until he receives a new dose of media content ...
Almost the beginning of the horror film called "Unwrap the sistemnik and plug in a new hard." It seems that it does not take much time and effort: unscrew a couple of screws, remove the side cover of the computer, tear off the wires (the seats, as always, are not enough;), remove the old hard, put a new one - everything. Well, except that after transferring files you need to return everything to its place. But it's Friday, evening, and then Kolya ...

In general, I suggest a panacea for this kind of surprises - a reader for hard drives called Sunbeamtech HDD Docking Station.
In principle, it does not differ from its smaller counterparts - card readers - it’s just bigger, heavier, and it doesn’t have enough electricity from the USB port. Therefore, it has a socket at the back for the plug of the network adapter. And next to it are next to the power button and two interfaces: USB 2.0 and eSATA.

The connection takes some time, after which the device is ready to work, for plug-n-play. I think that even a child will be able to insert a hard disk into a slot, not to mention the different bearded personalities who usually buy such things. Both 2.5- and 3.5-inch drives up to a terabyte are suitable, which is still enough. You should not be afraid to break the characteristic L-shaped contacts on hard drives, because everything is calculated to the millimeter - they become like a glove.

Well, the data transfer rate is either limited by the bandwidth of USB, or you use a fast interface, and the ceiling is the read / write speed of the media itself.
By copying all the movies you need or making a backup, you can safely turn off the reader and press hard on its central mechanical button that pushes the hard drive out. Something on the toaster seems, yeah :)
In general, if you often copy data to hard drives, and the price of $ 47 does not seem too high to you, this gadget is a definite must have!
© Zvyagin Ivan, 2009, for CyberStyle.ru and Habrahabr.