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Yes, the new drive and the enclosure will both
need to be the same type as the old drive.
There may be enclosures that can take both
types, but since the laptop will most likely only
take one, not much point considering the prices
on enclosures.
If your intention is to swap the drives between an external
USB enclosure and your laptop, there are two things you
*must* pay attention to.
First is whether the drive in the USB enclosure is actually
removable from the enclosure. The otherwise excellent (I
have one...) Western Digital Passport drives recommended
in another post are *NOT* removable from their enclosure
because the case is a very compact and close-fitting
2-piece plastic clamshell that appears to be welded closed.
You're almost certain to ruin the case if you tried to pry
it apart, and there's also a pretty great risk that you'd
damage the drive in the process, too.
Second is whether the drive in the USB enclosure is the
same interface as the one in your laptop. Chances are
good that the one in the USB box will be SATA (unless
it's a real cheapie), and if your laptop is more than 2
years old the chances are good that it uses an IDE drive.
At which point you wouldn't be able to do any swapping.
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