External Hard Disk Drive Enclosure are they any good?

irishgeo

Being short of cash i am thinking of buying one of these for a 1/4 of the sum of a external hard drive and egtting a cheap hard drive on here and using that.

Anyone have any experience of these external hard drive enclosures and if someone could reccomend one for me it would be great.

I know they might not be as good as a real external hard drive but i only need it for backing up my information via norton ghost.

Stephen

I have a USB2.0 one that i use with a 2.5" laptop hard disk, its great. Very fast and powered off the USB port. If you want to use a full size 3.5" ide disk you'll need a larger one with an external power source.

vibe666

ditto.

got a 3.5" (has seperate PSU) one in thailand last year and put a spare 40gb drive in it myself. USB2 connection, don't notice any rel difference between it and my internal HD's.

also just got a nice little 2.5" one off ebay yesterday for 99p (+£8 p+p) that I'm going to stick a spare 20gb laptop drive in (USB powered) when I get it delivered.

very handy to have, and as long as you have USB2 ports on your PC you'll never know it's not inside your system. until you trip over it and send it flying out the window.

cosgrove80

Is it necessary for them to have a fan in the case or are temperatures a problem.

Vibe666 if I was to buy off ebay what make would you recommend?

The_Conductor

I have a 3.5" in an external enclosure- smaller than an average paperback book and quite very sleek. It has a 5-12 volt ac power adaptor.
It runs fine- but is extremely hot to touch (approaching 60 degrees after prolonged constant use)- not that the temperature seems to impact on its operational performance.

I also have another 3.5" drive in an external enclosure- only this one is mounted on an antivibration math in a 5.25" external CD ROM drive enclosure. The enclosure in this case has a cooling fan, and also a built in transformer- so a regular cable plugs straight into the back of it. This case has an on-off button on it- it might seem like a simple feature- but its nice to be able to turn it off without physically yanking the transformer out of the wall- as is the case with the smaller enclosure.

Both cases as worked aluminium, and seem, by virtue of their material, to be good heat dispersers.

Ultimately- fan or no fan, transformer or not- its a cosmetic decision you are making. Build quality seems to be uniformly fairly good these days.

RicardoSmith

I have a two 3.5 USB2 external enclosures. I use them with my laptop.
If you are using a 7,200 speed drive personally I'd get one with a fan.
Both of mine have fans, fairly quiet. They get warm, never hot, to touch.
Once connected to USB2 I find them quite fast.
I got mine in Maplins when they were on special offer.
They have external power supplies and are quite small.

Capt'n Midnight

Just don't get USB 1.1 - it's soooo slow.

Stephen

of course, if your machine only has USB1.1 then you're shagged. Unless you have firewire or are willing to shell out for a USB2/firewire PCI card.

TinCool

Originally posted by Stephen
of course, if your machine only has USB1.1 then you're shagged. Unless you have firewire or are willing to shell out for a USB2/firewire PCI card.

Not all that expensive for 5x USB 2.0 Ports. Ordered one myself the other day.D Link USB 2.0 5 Port PCI Card DU-520

irishgeo

some interesting points here guys.

I want it for backing up mu systems and maybe others as well.

ill be using norton ghost or something similiar to that.

I have a laptop with a firewire and USB 2.0 but the main Pc which would be losing one of its hard drives to use as the backup unit has only got USB 1.1 but i did upgrade the sound card so it has a firewire port.

Can anyone recommend a online shop i can buy them off at a cheap rate because i dont like buying off E-Bay and recommend a good model at not a too pricey rate.

Think ill prefer the case with a fan dont fancy having to juggle a hot pancake ,when i pick it up, when leaving a mates house.

Dr. Dre

Just got one (today in fact) off ebay UK, just over €30 delivered.
Brand new in sealed retail box, USB 2 and cooling fan.
Great bit of kit.
The sellers name was primecomputers, they have over 3000 feedback.
You might even get it cheaper if you pay attention to their listed items.

The_Conductor

irishgeo - it is going to cost you at least Euro 20 more for a firewire or a joint firewire/USB 2.0 model than its going to cost for a straight USB 2.0 model. Reason is most of them get used on Macs and Mac accessories are pricey. An idea of price- Komplett's cheapest one is Euro 60 (and thats out of stock.....)

I picked up a joint case myself from Komplett about a week back- it was on special, it only cost Euro 20 (but they're all gone and the link I had is dead- and the sku does not bring up a result).

Marx-computers.ie have two different cases with firewire for Euro 72 (one of them is really funky looking- with Icybox engraved on it and its USB 2.0 as well).

Have a look around- they are available- but not necessarily cheap.

Re: USB 2.0- the add-on cards often pop up in the For Sale section as second hand items for an asking price of about 15 Euro.

Re: Case with Fan- it tends to be a good deal bigger than the unit without, some people value portability at a premium....

Mixie

I've got 3 of these things and will probably get another soon. The first is a USB2 CD/DVD/HD case, with inbuilt psu + fan - so you just stick a kettle plug in the back and you're good to go. The case doesn't get hot at all (luke-warm at most) but it is a bit more bulky than my other cases. Front mounted powerswitch, low running temp, and the convenience of being able to find a kettle plug anywhere in order to power it up would be the main advantages.

The other cases are those Icy Boxes that smccarrick mentioned - they get pretty warm, pretty quickly. I don't think I'd leave them permanently, so handily enough they both feature a rear mounted powerswitch. Again these enclosures are USB2, but they use an external powersupply (transformer) and have a funky power connector. The transformer also gets warm/hot, but the cases are a good bit smaller than the other case I mentioned, and much lighter.

With regard to Marx-Computers, if you're nearby I'd recommend you drop in as they don't seem to update their website all too often. They have more available items/stock than is listed on the site (last time I was in there was 4/5 seperate HD enclosures while the website only listed 2/3).

What a long post to say "I wouldn't hesitate to buy an external enclosure for a HD"! The only thing I would say is, if you're going to stick a large HD into it then make sure you're going USB2/Firewire - USB1 is slow as hell. You can pick up USB2 PCI cards pretty cheaply off the net though you should check the chipset you're getting with the likes of USBman first (some have weird compatability issues).

I don't know about HD size limits on the enclosures other than the fact that some enclosures I looked at listed a limit of 200Gb (like my 1st one) or 250GB (like my Icy Boxes).

the1andonly1

I was wondering could anyone recommend a usb2.0 3.5" case with a fan? thanks in advance

The_Conductor

Zynet do a nice one- got three of them last week very impressed with them.
The ones with the fan tend to be a bit bigger than the normal 3.5" HDD drive enclosures, and more aimed at 5.25" devices- e.g. sticking an internal DVD Writer in a case and putting it on the USB 2.0 port. That said- it does look nice and neat and tidy.

Link to the case on Komplett:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=122589&cks=PRL

Shane

The_Conductor

PS- If you have a choice of using either Firewire or USB 2.0 on your computer- strongly recommend you go with Firewire (or at least a combo enclosure with both).
USB 2.0 has a maximum data throughput of 480 Mbps, whereas Firewire (IEEE1394) has a maximum throughput of 400Mbps. Ok- the firewire may have a slower max- but its asynchronous- its continuous- not like USB 2.0 which starts off very quickly and then slows down.

Shane

the1andonly1

Unfortunatly i've no firewire, just the Usb 2.0. Thanks for the link, thats what i'm looking for. What would you need to make that model compatable with a 3.5" drive (the description says something about brackets)?

The_Conductor

They come with the case- its two aluminium brackets along with all the mounting screws etc. Total doddle to screw the HDD into it- you won't have any problems at all. Suggest using the jumpers on the back to the HDD to set it to "Slave"- though it doesn't say anything about that in the little book that came with the case.

Shane

Gryzor

hey

i bought one of these a few weeks back, does the job, Slighty more than komplett but i think shipping is a bit less??

icybox

do a search for "icy"

The_Conductor

Komplett is a flat Euro 10, regardless of what you order (unless you end up in the bulk haulage business or something.....)
The "Icy" box does look sexy though!