External Enclosure

square_imp · 7 Feb 2008 at 18:05

Looking for an external enclosure for a 500GB Samsung Spinpoint, was wondering which ones are generally thought as best, is active cooling really needed for example or does it just cause more noise?

crazyDAJT · 7 Feb 2008 at 19:28

i have one of these

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-005-AK&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

i think they look grate,

also eSATA and USB, so it good for all of my computers.

cooling isn't an issue as I'm only using it for backup, but i had it on for a good hours yesterday and it didn't seam to hot, and its silent

jbloggs · 7 Feb 2008 at 20:22

I have the Icy Box External Enclosure IB-360AStUS - very good indeed, but the only slight issue is that if you want to change interfaces ie. USB to eSATA, you have to open it up and do it, however I believe that the Akasa Integral P2 eSATA/USB 2.0 (linked to in the last post) has a switch on the outside that does the change over (just to make sure do, double check this), thus doing away with having to open it up.

square_imp · 7 Feb 2008 at 20:49

Thanks for those two, both look pretty good, do you know if there is any limit on thickness of drive that will fit in the enclosure, I have a fairly thick 500gb spinpoint.

badbob · 7 Feb 2008 at 20:51

Don't waste your time with USB 2, too unreliable. Get eSata.

crazyDAJT · 7 Feb 2008 at 21:57

the Akasa Integral has a nice switch on the outside, it also has a USB type connector (B i think) more info can be found hear.

http://www.akasa.co.uk/

badbob said:
Don't waste your time with USB 2, too unreliable. Get eSata.

eSATA is grate, almost as fast as my internal SATA2 Hard drives. but not much good when you need to attach it to you laptop.

square_imp · 7 Feb 2008 at 22:38

I think unfortunately I am going to be stuck with usb as my macbook doesn't have esata.

crazyDAJT · 7 Feb 2008 at 23:56

square_imp said:
I think unfortunately I am going to be stuck with usb as my macbook doesn't have esata.

don't get an caddy then, just get a USB hardrive, no point in paying for something your not going to use.

rpstewart · 8 Feb 2008 at 10:48

crazyDAJT said:
don't get an caddy then, just get a USB hardrive, no point in paying for something your not going to use.

Huh? A USB HDD is a normal HDD in a caddy. If the OP already has a drive (which it sounds like) then there's no point in buying another disk when a USB caddy will suffice.

square_imp · 8 Feb 2008 at 11:10

indeed, already have a 500GB HDD that I want to use as an external for a laptop with only USB connectivity, a usb caddy is the most sensible option I think, just need to chose a suitable one that isn't too expensive.

rpstewart · 8 Feb 2008 at 11:23

If it's USB only then you might as well go by cost rather than anything else - they're all pretty much of a muchness.

Looking about the Akasa one mentioned earlier is probably the cheapest SATA->USB caddy going but it's out of stock, as is the non eSATA version of the IcyBox that jbloggs suggested. Just be careful though, some of the cheap ones only take IDE drives.

jonshaw_uk · 8 Feb 2008 at 12:13

i got an icy box and its been great so far

Rambaud · 8 Feb 2008 at 21:05

square_imp said:
I think unfortunately I am going to be stuck with usb as my macbook doesn't have esata.

I use Firewire caddies for my external hard drives and macbook - for speed and bootability with OS X.