External 500GB

You would probably be better off buying the hard drive and external enclosure separately. That way you have a choice of hard drive (most pre-built external hard drives will use maxtors which don't have the best reputation) and you also have the choice of a suitable enclosure.

What connector will you be using for the external drive? Some newer enclosures support eSATA, as well as USB, which allows for the full bandwidth of SATA to be used, making transfer rates considerably faster than if you were using USB. It also means that if you need to use it on a pc without and eSATA connection you will still be able to use the USB connector.

If you will be using the enclosure over and eSATA conenctor then the Western Digital 500GB AAKS drive offers the best performance at the moment and is cheaper than alternate models. If you will just be using USB then you may as well save money and get a cheaper 500GB drive such as the Seagate 500GB 7200.9 drive. Even though it is slower than the Western Digital there will be no performance difference over USB as they will be limited by the USB bandwidth.

As for the enclosure, the Icy Box IB-360AStUS will be a good choice as it supports both IDE and SATA hard drives as well as having USB and eSATA.

Hope that helps :)
 
jamiecottonuk said:
If I didnt want to go that route that how does this rate?
Lacie
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Lacie are considered to be a top quality brand. They've recently started using more reliable hard drives inside them from the likes of Hitachi and Seagate. This would be a good choice.
 
I have a 320Gb Seagate external (USB2 & Firewire 400) which has been fine.

And 2 IcyBoxes - which is the more flexible option.

Firewire is usally faster in practice than USB2.
 
I have , at the last count 24 Lacie drives both at home an in the office, apart from a power supply and one dodgy usb port theve been cracking, the oldest drive is coming up six years now, ita a 20 gig pocket drive and i still use it every day
 
I picked up a 400GB Freecom drive today, and it's fitted with a Samsung Spinpoint HD400LD drive. Not a bad drive by all accounts, and pretty quiet reading and writing too.

I like the look of those Lacie's though!
 
Tooks said:
I picked up a 400GB Freecom drive today, and it's fitted with a Samsung Spinpoint HD400LD drive. Not a bad drive by all accounts, and pretty quiet reading and writing too.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you got the same one as me.On offer in a well known retailer (I feel guilty for buying something there :p)

Very nice harddrive, nice and quiet, quite hot though.
 
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