External HDD advice please

Sic Puppy · May 14, 2008, 11:09 PM

Hiya,
I'm looking for an external HDD for keeping all my pics, vids etc on to help keep my main internal HDD a bit clearer and so I can take them to family and friends houses. I'm just not sure if I should just go for a Seagte freeagent or buy a Seagate SATA internal drive and get a nice enclosure for it. Do you know of any performace differences (I'll be using eSATA)?
Cheers

Tipstaff · May 15, 2008, 12:23 AM

eSATA = interal SATA performance. Well... most of the time. I've seen some controllers limit drives to SATAI performance, but only with the crappy external boxes.

Since the size of 2.5" drives have increased you might consider looking into getting one of those. And yes, separate is better purely due to the warranty (most pre-built externals only have a 1 year warranty, while separate parts gives you whatever warranty is on the drive). You can even get these in SATA as well, and the beauty here is that the SATA connectors are identical to their bigger 3.5" brethern. That means if the box ever dies you could remove the drive, and hook it up directly to the internal headers on the board.

The main reason I recommend to get a 2.5" drive is that they are more portable, and most will run off the systems power via USB. With external 3.5" boxes they are bulkier, and all of them have external power units, which increases their bulk even more. The only drawback to the 2.5" drives is that even though the sizes have increased (max currently 320GB) they are nowhere close to 3.5" (1TB) drive sizes.

Edit: BTW, I should say that if you do put together your own box, stay away from CoolMax enclosures. They are crap. The 2.5" enclosures don't work sometimes, and their 3.5" boxes PSUs eventually die within 6-12 months.

Edit 2: Almost forgot. With 2.5" boxes, if you use the eSATA connector you will need to power the case, either using a dedicated USB to power (which sometimes is just enough), but an AC adapter is better.

Sic Puppy · May 15, 2008, 04:08 PM

Hey thanks for that advice Tipstaff.
Think I will stick with the 3.5 as will be looking at at least a 500GB HDD (probably the new Seagate 11 series one). I've been looking at the Vantec & Coolermaster enclosers. Only difference I can see is the CM ones have a couple of USB ports on them but is an extra NZ$10, so the Vantec will probably get my dollars as it has better looks

and I have USB ports coming out my ears already

Tipstaff · May 16, 2008, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sic Puppy

Hey thanks for that advice Tipstaff.
Think I will stick with the 3.5 as will be looking at at least a 500GB HDD (probably the new Seagate 11 series one). I've been looking at the Vantec & Coolermaster enclosers. Only difference I can see is the CM ones have a couple of USB ports on them but is an extra NZ$10, so the Vantec will probably get my dollars as it has better looks

and I have USB ports coming out my ears already

The last time I bought the Vantec eSATA (the NST-360UFS-BK which is USB, Firewire, and eSATA) enclosure they gave a backplate eSATA bracket. Thought that was nice of them.

Word of warning: if you have other Vantec 3.5" cases be sure to label the PSUs for them. Vantec has a bad habit of reusing the same connectors, but not using the same power output for them, or using the same pinouts. Plug in a Vantec PSU from another case, and say goodbye to the drive, and that case.

[hobo]eclipse · May 16, 2008, 03:45 AM

I really enjoy the portablility of my WD Passport. Real compact, simply plug in the USB cable and go. Decent size, decent transfer speeds, but very very mobile.

The antec enclosure I have, though nice and definatly easier to take along than opening the PC its almost to cumbersome and odd with the power brick to be easily mobile.

The passport fits in your pants pocket no problem, the external enclosure W/ power brick, box and a handful of wires to carry around will need to go in a backpack or something.