External Hard Drive Enclosures

paulmorg

Has anyone had an experiece with those external cases for hard drives?

I want some sort of external backup system for my pc (after a previous disaster!). I've noticed that it looks to be far cheaper do get one of these caddies and a seperate hard drive than it is to buy a standalone external HD (eg Maxtor OneTouch).

I've been having a look around ebay and a few pc sites but they all look pretty low quality. I'm also a bit worried about overheating. What do you all think?

lellie

ICY BOY!!!

Get an icy box.. they do one with firewire/usb2 and SATA.. which means nice fast transfer if you've got a sata port.. just plug the cable in your motherboard.. and then slip it through a hole in the back of your case and plug into the back of the icy box

paulmorg

Aha! that looks more like what I was looking for. Just had a look on the scan.co.uk website.

They look a lot better and more trustworthy than the HK ones on ebay.

Lack of fan though - nice for acoustic reasons, but what about overheating?

condyk

I bought one about 6 months ago from ebay and have been very happy with it. Good seller. It can work out much cheaper than a self contained unit and very flexible too. Here is the one I bought. Not the cheapest, but has a built in fan and USB 2.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3754&item=5189156315

I'm thinking of getting another one actually as a have a new spare HD somewhere that I got as a warantee replacement.

rogue_element

If you want you can get a laptop HD and a 2.5" enclosure, then it wont take space up on your desk and you can take it to your mate's house to copy all that .... stuff...you copy

paulmorg

After a bit of google searching, I have found loads of reviews praising the Icy Box, and then I get to this:

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=24641&page=2&pp=12

which basically says that the firewire chip is a bit dodgy and has a tendency to corrupt drives. I didn't really want to use SATA because I just want to be able to plug it quickly into the back of the PC. Does anyone know how much slower it is likely to be over USB2 (if I just use it for Norton Ghost images).

With regards to the link Condyk gave, I only really want a 3.5" caddy, since I won't be putting anything other than a HD in it. I also already have the drive I want to use, and I would've thought a 2.5" 200gb drive is either non-existent or bloody expensive.

Besides, I have no idea as to the sort of stuff you are refferring, rogue_element. 200 gb of perfectly legal stuff here!

Johnnypanic_2

Check out svp.co.uk for hd enclosures and they're doing a 99p shipping weekend as well

Johnnypanic

LongDongDave

I bought a 3.5" usb2 from Maplin at xmas...still not got round to using yet!

Patr100

There's some here but I haven't bought anything form this company.
http://diskdepot.co.uk/acatalog/Enclosures.html

condyk

Maybe you should explain your requirements more so people don't waste time trying to help you with suggestions that don't fit what you already know are quite specific needs! You asked for peoples thoughts and expressed a concern about overheating and I answered your question with a viable suggestion that is big enough to allow the drive to 'breath' and has a fan. Now you say you already have a drive and you only want a 3.5 caddy.

charlieheard

I did just this with a spare 60Gb drive, when I had to rebuild my PC after a hardware failure. I got it from Maplins, complete with a switchable fan. Drive is fixed to the plastic case, so needs gentle handling...

Runs on USB2 or 1, but much faster on 2. I don't find the speed an issue with USB2, using it as a backup device for my key files