External drive...

[Big Chris]

Am I right in thinking that if I were to bag one of these external enclosures:

Clicky

then I could just stick one of my existing IDE drives in to make it an external one?

I'm looking at this one: Icy Box External Enclosure IB-351UE-B-BL Firewire + USB Combo - Black/LED

Can it just run via USB or do you have to use Firewire too? Are they powered via the USB too or do they require an AC adaptor?

 

[Big Chris]

Hmmm... problem is, the firewire port on my base unit has never worked for some reason, but the USBs are fine. I've got a 40GB Western Digi portable drive which runs fine from USB and I use it to swap files around between machines and to friends.

This new drive would be used to backup my music and films though, just in case the worse happens. You think I'll need its own power supply then?

EDIT: some really nice pics in your gallery there rpstewart, I'm gonna have to get myself up North of the border when my new MTB bike is sorted!