Converting server drives into external drives

Question

My workplace recently decommissioned a Dell Poweredge server, and I'm permitted to scavenge for bits I want. In particular, there are a few Seagate Cheeta 10K.7 Ultra U320 SCSI drives that I'd like to use as external media drives. They're currently mounted inside a Dell enclosure that makes them easy to hot-swap into the server, but that looks fairly easy to take off if desired.

However, I'm not sure how I go about this. I'm willing to buy an external enclosure (but I don't know which one I want), cabling, etc. My personal laptop is a Macbook Air, so ideally the solution would terminate in a USB-A or Thunderbolt plug that could go straight into my laptop.

How would this best be accomplished?

Answer 1

It's not likely to be financially viable to convert an Ultra320 SCSI drive to USB. I wasn't able to find any Ultra320-to-USB adapters on the open market. Failing that, the least expensive Ultra320 male-to-male cable I could find was $45. To put that into context, a brand new Seagate 1TB external USB drive costs $50 at Amazon. So you would be better off just buying a new drive rather than finding an adapter for a used drive.

The new drive will be faster anyhow due to its higher density platters.