Abstract:
A cartridge design allows any standard size IDE hard drive to be used like a removable media. The cartridge with the hard drive can then be connected to any computing devices via various interface ports such as USB, Firewire, PCMCIA, Parallel or any new IO ports. The cartridge consists of a disk connecting board, a cartridge housing and an eject mechanism to remove the hard drive from the cartridge.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Field of The Invention  
           [0002]    The present invention relates to an universal hard disk cartridge, and particularly the present invention to provide easily changeable hard drive from the universal hard disk cartridge, and not necessary to open the external hard drive housing.  
           [0003]    2. Description of Related Art  
           [0004]    Data storage devices primary fall into two categories: the removable storage and hard disk storage. These two types of data storage devices offer different advantages depending on the type of applications.  
           [0005]    In the removable storage, the storage media can be replaced as more storage space is needed. Cost of the media is relatively inexpensive. But the data transfer rate for removable storage devices in general are much slower than hard disk storage. Thus the removable storage is great for data archiving. To access the data stored on a removable storage media, the computer must have a compatible drive that can read the data from the media. Example, a CDRW drive or CD-ROM drive is needed to access the data on a CDRW media, a DVD drive is needed to access data on a DVD media, a 240MB-ZIP drive is needed to access data on a 240MB ZIP media. As a result, in order for a computer to access data on a variety of removable media, it must be equipped with various types of drives.  
           [0006]    In the case of hard disk storage, the media and the drive are integrated together. With this design, the data transfer rate for hard drive is much faster than the removable storage. Thus hard disk is great for storing program files, for storing data that are accessed all the time and for streaming video application. Since the hard drive and the storage media are all integrated in one unit, the computer can access the data stored in a hard drive by connecting up the hard disk controller cable and the power cable from inside a computer to the hard drive. But this way of connecting a hard drive to a computer usually requires opening up the computer and technical skill.  
           [0007]    External hard drive solves the problem of connecting a drive to a computer without opening up the computers. The external hard drives attach to a computer via one of the common I/O ports on a computer: USB, Firewire or PCMCIA. Since all the external hard drives are constructed with an enclosure to house the hard drive and the interface electronics. The additional cost of the housing and interface electronics make the external hard drive much more expensive than an internal IDE drive. So when an external hard drive capacity is used up, the user will have to purchase another external hard drive in order to have more data storage capacity. In addition, the external hard drive with this traditional design also limits its use to a single interface. If you have an external USB hard drive, a computer that has no USB port will not be able to use the hard drive.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0008]    The invention in this patent, called “Universal Hard Disk Cartridge”, also refer to as UHDC in this patent, significantly improves the cost and flexibility of the external hard drive. The UHDC design also reduce the overall size to almost the size of the hard drive itself. With this invention, users can conveniently add and remove hard drive from the UHDC as if the hard drive is a removable storage media. When the hard drive capacity is filled up, it can be easily removed from the UHDC and replaced with a new hard drive of any capacity, similar to ejecting or removing the floppy media of a floppy drive. The Universal Hard Disk Cartridge is designed with a standard MC-36 connector so that it can be connected to any IO ports of any computing devices via an interface cable with the appropriate interface electronics.  
           [0009]    The primary object of the present invention is to provide a cartridge, namely Universal Hard Disk Cartridge (UHDC), which enable to improve in large-scaled of cost reduction and assembly flexibility of external hard disk; also minimize the dimension of external hard disk size to the size of hard disk per se. According to the present invention, the users can easily add or remove the hard disk from UHDC as they have done in CDRW, floppy and other removable storage devices. When the space of hard disk is fully occupied, it can be easily removed from the UHDC and replace with a new one. Furthermore, said UHDC has a MC-36 connector which can connect to any I/O port of PC through proper interface device. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0010]    The present invention can be more fully understood by referring to the following description and accompanying drawings, in which:  
         [0011]    [0011]FIG. 1 is the prospective view of the preferred embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0012]    [0012]FIG. 2 is the prospective view of insert the hard disk to the UHDC;  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 3 is the prospective view of insert and eject of the hard disk; and  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 4 is the prospective view of the UHDC connects to the computer. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0015]    Referring to FIG. 1 The Universal Hard Disk Cartridge (UHDC)  30  has two components—the hard disk connecting board  10  and the universal hard disk cartridge housing  20 .  
         [0016]    Referring to FIG. 1 again, the hard disk connecting board  10  consists of a female IDE connector  11 , a MC-36 female connector  12 , a power input jack  13  for providing power to the hard drive and a printed circuit board (PCB)  14 . The PCB  14  is designed to have the same width (W1) as the width (W3) of the 2.5″ hard drive  40  (see FIG. 2). The connector  11  is posited on the PCB  14  such that when the hard drive  40  is installed onto the PCB  14 , the edges of the hard drive  40  will line with the edges of the PCB  14  (see FIG. 2).  
         [0017]    The universal hard disk cartridge (UHDC) housing  20  has an inside width (W2) the same as the width (W1) of the PCB  14  and the inside height the same as the thickness of the 2.5″ hard drive  40  plus the thickness of the PCB (P). The length of the UDHC housing  20  can be from 50% to 100% the length (L) of the PCB  14 . The universal hard disk cartridge  30  is then formed by slipping the entire PCB  14  all the way inside the housing  20  till the connector  12  comes out the back of the UHDC housing  20 , as illustrated in FIG. 1. The PCB  14  is then secured flat to the bottom of the UHDC housing  20  with strong adhesive or some mechanical fasteners (not shown in the drawing for simplicity).  
         [0018]    To install the hard drive  40  into the cartridge  30 , the hard drive  40  is slid inside the cartridge  30  with the connector  42  end of the hard drive  40  heading in, as illustrated in FIG. 2. The side walls of the cartridge housing - 30  serves as the alignment guide so that the male connector  42  of the hard drive always line up to the female IDE connector  11  on the PCB  14  as the hard drive slides into the cartridge and connect up to the female IDE connector  11  inside the cartridge  30 . The hard drive  40  is then push snugly all the way inside the cartridge  30  till the end of the hard drive  40  is fully line up with the outside edge of the PCB  14 , indicating the hard drive  40  is now securely connected up mechanically and electrically with the hard disk connector board  10 . Now the hard drive  40  will be held in place inside the UHDC by the frictional force between the male IDE connector  42  and the female IDE connector  11 . The hard drive  40  can be removed from the UHDC by pushing on the ejecting button  21 . Similar to other removable media, a label  41  can also be applied to the top surface of the hard drive to quickly identify the content of the hard drive  40 .  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 3 front view shows how the hard drive sits inside the UHDC and the detail of the eject button. Many other mechanical eject designs can also be used to dislodge the hard drive from inside the UHDC. In FIG. 3, rear view also shows how the connector  12 , power input connector  13  and the eject button  21  come out the back end of the UHDC.  
         [0020]    The UHDC with the hard drive  40  installed can now be attached to interface cable  50  via the MC-36 connector  12  as shown in FIG. 4. The interface cable  50  can either be an USB, PCMCIA, Firewire or IDE cable interface cable to match the IO port on the computer, Which is not shown here for simplicity.  
         [0021]    Below is a comparison for external data storage devices constructed with Traditional Data Storage Enclosures verses the storage device constructed with  
         [0022]    Universal Storage Cartridge design:  
                                       Traditional       Universal Hard Disk Cartridge   External Hard Drive                   The housing is one piece design which   The housing consists of two       substantially reduce the tooling cost   pieces which result in more           expensive tooling.       Hard drive can be installed and removed   Installation and removal       on the fly from the cartridge. As the hard   of the hard drive       drive space is filled up, it can be easily   usually requires special tools       replaced with another fresh hard drive.   to disassembling and           reassembling the housing,           making it impractical to           replace the hard drive inside           the enclosure.       Less material cost as the cartridge   Higher material cost as more       enclosure typically half of that of the   material is needed       traditional external storage enclosure   for the enclosure       Low manufacturing cost as the storage   Higher manufacturing cost       device is added to the cartridge with   as assembly is required       simple insertion, similar to loading a   to install the storage device       floppy media into a floppy drive.   inside the enclosure.       Smaller in size   Larger in size       Can add visible label on the storage   Cannot add visible label to the       device for easy identification of the   hard drive as it is       content stored in the drive   completely enclosed.       Hard drive can be easily ejected out of   Removal of hard drive       the cartridge housing with an eject button   from the enclosure requires       design.   disassembly in the enclosures.                  
 
         [0023]    Although the invention in this patent described a design specifically for a 2.5″ hard drive, the concept can easily be applied to a 3.5″ hard drive and other ATAPI storage devices.  
         [0024]    While the invention has been described with reference to preferred embodiment thereof, it is to be understood that modifications or variations may be easily made without departing from the spirit of this invention, which is defined by the appended claims.