i assume since you are talking pcmcia, you are using it for a laptop. when i had my laptop, i had a usb 2.0 case designed to hold a laptop hard drive. it was small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. i had a 40gig drive in it & used it & my laptop for my DJing gigs. total investment for the drive & enclosure was ~$250. i also used it to swap data from the desktop & laptop or share my music onto friends pc.

just a thought....