Advice building external harddrive caddie

[devilman_079]

I am in looking into building a portable harddrive caddie instead of buying an off the shelf product and had some general questions:

1) What are the best external cases to buy? Am only intending to need an usb connection and would prefer to have an option of both the drive working with and without external power supply. Needs to be fairly tough as well to survive a few knocks in transport and be cool running.

2) What harddrives work just drawing power from the usb port only? Not concerned if its 2.5" or 3.5" caddies will go with whatever is the cheapest preferred solution.

3) Again suggestions on the make of harddrive and if 2.5" is preferable to 3.5"?

4) Once I have ordered the recommended caddie and harddrive is it best to format as NTFS or FAT32? If preference is FAT32 what is the free and best way of formatting above 32Gb in FAT32 using WinXP Pro?

5) My budget is £80

Much appreciation for anyone who can help or advise or suggest a sticky guide. Thanks in advance. D.

 

[Conman]

1. Depends on your demand... You want the caddies with IDE or SATA interface?
If SATA, u can also use Hot swap direct from your MB.
20 - 35 quids are the normal price. I prefer IcyBox.

2. If you using the 3.5 (internal HD with Caddie) , they surely need external power. There are also many all in one external HD which does not need external power such as freecom etc. However, their speed and transfer rate is much lower than the normal 3.5 one.

3. I use Samsung 400 GB 3.5 SATA2 as my external. I like it coz it is very quite and fast.

4. I would go for NTFS

5. The ICy box cost 23 quids + 50 quids for 250 GB samsung?

 

[koolpcs]

With all the hassle involved you would probably be better off buying a ready made caddy.