I am gonna buy an external USB HDD...
Any recommendation?

4/13/2006 8:17:41 PM

get a penguin gear SATA/USB or just USB external enclosure, then buy whatever HDD you want to put inside it.

4/13/2006 8:49:40 PM

^ definitely do that - external drives come with an "idiot tax". You will almost always pay more if you buy one as a package than just doing it yourself.

Watch for a good HDD deal and buy then, get an enclosure to match.

Buy SATA only if it is cheaper - SATA offers no benefits in an external enclosure. Even a PATA drive will transfer faster than USB2 can sustain.

[Edited on April 14, 2006 at 9:20 AM. Reason : +]

4/14/2006 9:18:35 AM

^unless you find a really good deal on an external hard drive.... like I did on black friday

4/14/2006 2:00:34 PM

I'll build you a 5.5TB RAID 3 storage array for $5800.

[Edited on April 14, 2006 at 2:05 PM. Reason : can't type]

4/14/2006 2:04:57 PM

^I would be interested.. but thats just not enough storage.

4/14/2006 8:07:00 PM

^^^^ get whatever is cheaper unless you get that penguin sata/usb enclosure i was talking about, it lets you interface with the pc via sata or usb (using a sata pci card so you can connect the external case without opening your pc)

if you just want portability and don't care then just get a cheap usb external enclosure and the cheapest drive you can find gig/$ (that matches the case's internal interface... don't be a moron and mismatch that)

4/14/2006 8:15:37 PM

if you go with pre-packaged, dont get iomega.. had two of them fail on me.. first one died after about 8 months, the replacement drive about 6 months.. to their credit they shipped the replacement quick, just a shitty product...

had an external seagate for about a year now, its been good..
'think at the price I bought it at it would have been more expensive to buy a case + drive than the single unit..

4/15/2006 1:58:53 AM

I bought this one from newegg based on its reviews and have had no problems with it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145656
The Penguin Gear looks interesting as well.

4/15/2006 7:12:21 AM

Anyone have any specific enclosures to recommend? I bought a cheap Ultra one from tigerdirect and the fan shit the bed within a couple months. In the process of trying to take the drive out I managed to finish off the already shaky ata cable that connected the circuit board to the drive. I have heard other external drives have the 40pin connector hard soldered into the board and I imagine the fit on these is better than the shitty short length of ribbon connector that was used in this ultra.

5/11/2006 10:15:50 AM

i've got two of these (of different brands, but same exact case), and at $20, it's not bad at all:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817173008

in my opinion, you don't need to bother with a fan in your enclosure UNLESS you get one that's all/mostly plastic...getting an aluminum enclosure does plenty to disperse the heat...i can actually speak out of experience since i have three aluminum external hd's stacked on top of each other and they've run for the past year without any problems or being especially hot

5/11/2006 10:34:29 AM

do all of the USB external enclosures require an external power source?

5/11/2006 10:43:47 AM

yes, unless you're using a 2.5" (laptop) hd, in which case it can be bus-powered

5/11/2006 10:59:17 AM

3.5 drives need 12V. Theoretically the USB line could be able to bump the 5V up to 12V, but the spec limit is 500mA so we are only talking 2.5w here. My 2002 year 80gb drive requires .5A@12V and .5A@5V. I suppose a powered hub could go outside the spec and power the entire drive via just the USB cable, but I doubt you'll find anything like this out there.

5/11/2006 11:02:49 AM

i don't think i'd trust a usb-powered 3.5" drive, even if they did have an enclosure that did it

5/11/2006 11:14:46 AM

Also verify your computer does fully support USB 2.0 on all levels. I've had issues with certain Dells supporting USB 2.0 in Windows, but not necessarily elsewhere.

5/11/2006 11:34:18 AM

tigerdirect has a 250gb external drive for $105. 7200rpm 8mb cache, no fans though

5/11/2006 11:35:05 AM

If you don't feel like building it yourself, I've always liked the LaCie products. They're fairly slick looking and usually come with some decent software and one-touch backup features. They're also usually fairly reasonably priced. Of course, they won't be nearly as cheap as something you'd put together yourself.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10359999&SearchEngine=PriceGrabber&SearchTerm=10359999&Type=PE&Category=Comp&Gad=0&dcaid=15890

[Edited on May 12, 2006 at 1:42 AM. Reason : ]

5/12/2006 1:39:19 AM