3,5'' external HDD as a replacement of an internal 2,5'' HDD

I use my laptop mainly indoors, so portability is not an issue for me most of the time.

I have got a 3,5'' sata HDD inside a raidsonic icybox IB360 enclosure. This enclosure apart from the USB post, has also a sata connection port. Not an e-sata but the usual L-shaped sata port, like the one in our motherboards.

Inside the raidsonic package there is also a bracket that connects the external disk directly to the motherboard of my desktop PC and the external disk is recognized and boots as an internal one.

Here goes my question now:
I was thinking of removing my small and slow 2,5'' sata HDD of my laptop and connecting my huge and ultra fast 3,5'' external HDD directly to the sata socket of my laptop.
(The external drive would be powered by the enclosure of course.)

The problem is that the sata HDD socket of the laptop is a "female" one, just like the sata cable.


I was thinking of buying a "male" to "female" sata extension, so as to connect the "male" end to the "female" port of my laptop.


The problem is I can't find such a cable in any eshop in europe.

Has anyone ever tried to do such a thing before?
I believe it should work. What do you think?

 

I don't know it will work or not, and to be honest I won't try it even if it works, because I feel confortable having cable lating around.

Check this out, you might find it useful:
http://www.applefritter.com/node/10859

just a tought. With a USB enclosure, the 3.5" will show up during the installation of Windows. So if you install windows in the 3.5" HDD while it's connected to your laptop, you may be able to boot from it and use it as if it was connected to your laptop directly instead of the 2.5" sata HDD.

 

Thanks naton, but no, it's not what i am looking for.
USB sucks and that's what I am trying to avoid.

(*) and no, I am not interested in ruining my laptop to put the 3,5'' HDD inside it.

I could buy a 320GB 2,5'' but it won't be neither as big nor as fast as my 3,5'' HDD.
Thanks anyway for your time.

 

Connecting a 3.5" HDD to a laptop is a bad idea. Mainly due to the voltage difference 12VDC vs 5VDC. The cable is just for data transfer, and I am not sure that the laptop will be able to provide enough power.

 

As I've mentioned, the external disk will be powered by its enclosure.
Only the sata data cable would be connected to the laptop. Not the sata power cable.

It works perfectly as an idea on my desktop PC.

 

Worth a try, and make sure you buy a SATA data cable.

+ It is a bad idea !!

Better off trading the 3.5" for a fast 2.5" HDD or a SSD.

 

I know that you want to use a sata HDD and my link is for IDE HDD, but thought it was an interesting link anyways.

I completely agree.