Good Ext Hard Drive needed

TC1 · 2 Feb 2007 at 13:55

I am after a good external hard drive to back up alll my pics / videos of my daughter. Any ideas as to which make / model to go for? Approx 300g + needed. Ta

rpstewart · 2 Feb 2007 at 14:00

What interface do you want - USB2, Firewire or eSATA?

Normally I recommend picking a caddy from here and then fitting a disk of your choice but the disk choice is going to be dependant on the caddy which is dependent on the interface you want.

ByteJuggler · 2 Feb 2007 at 14:40

Dont know your budget, but Iqon makes an enclosure with e-Sata and USB2 port, with a *fast* Hitachi 500Gb disk in it (marginally faster even than the much lauded and worthy Seagate 7200.10 disks.) I recently got one of these and can recommend them (if you search back in the history you'll find my brief review and some benchmarks of said disk.) Price is about £150 or thereabouts.

TC1 · 2 Feb 2007 at 18:36

Don't mind on the interface. USB or Firewire would be good i suppose. Is it better to get a ready made one or make one? I.E, A separate haed drive and caddy?

rpstewart · 2 Feb 2007 at 18:42

Depends really, if you want firewire then there's a better choice of pre-made ones, with USB you pretty much get the pick of the stall - plenty of pre-made ones and lots of DIY options.

The real benefit of DIY is that you get to pick the disk yourself whereas with a pre-built one there's always the chance you'll end up with a Maxtor.

TheVoice · 2 Feb 2007 at 18:53

rpstewart said:
Depends really, if you want firewire then there's a better choice of pre-made ones, with USB you pretty much get the pick of the stall - plenty of pre-made ones and lots of DIY options.

The real benefit of DIY is that you get to pick the disk yourself whereas with a pre-built one there's always the chance you'll end up with a Maxtor.

Surely that'd only happen if you bought a Maxtor external drive?

The Western Digital MyBooks are nice drives. Fairly inexpensive too.

TC1 · 2 Feb 2007 at 18:56

I would much rather put one together myself. Not sure which enclosure to go for though?

rpstewart · 2 Feb 2007 at 19:30

TheVoice said:
Surely that'd only happen if you bought a Maxtor external drive?

Nope, there are plenty of folk other than the drive manufacturers themselves making external drives. My Lacie Porsche drive for example has a Maxtor in it.

Dwbreeze1982 · 2 Feb 2007 at 20:50

icy box make some nice enlosures for both sata and pata ( Ide ) hard drives and thery are reasonablly priced as well. OCUK sell them, then i would pick up a nice segate 7200.10 drive and your away. As for budget you can pick up a 400g seagate for just short of £90 and the enclosure would be about £20

Hope this helps

shortone · 3 Feb 2007 at 11:02

Just surfed through this thread and its got me thinking I could do with one to back up my video projects, ideally I want a sata II connection with the choice of USB as well.
Am I right in thinking this enclosure will do the job ?

rpstewart · 3 Feb 2007 at 11:19

Yes, to a point. You need to take the enclosure apart and change the drive connection between the USB & SATA interfaces if you want to change how it connects to the PC.

There is another one which I think can auto sense but I'd need to check the reviews to confirm.

EDIT:Just checked the reviews on the MB559 and you can easily swap between the two interfaces.

shortone · 3 Feb 2007 at 11:30

Hi rpstewart,

Thanks for the info I would primarily be suing the sata but would like the USB as backup if I needed to take it to another PC location unlikely but useful, so chaning it in the enclosure would be fine.

Thanks for the advice

TC1 · 4 Feb 2007 at 16:23

Can someone recommend a good External Hard drive enclosure that will hold a 300+ Hard drive (IDE) and has USB2 and Firewaire connections.

rpstewart · 4 Feb 2007 at 21:43

There are a couple of IcyBox ones on OCUK, the IB-360 is the better looking of the two.

TC1 · 4 Feb 2007 at 22:04

Thanks. Anymore?

Reality Bites · 4 Feb 2007 at 22:13

wish OCUK would stock the icy box which has a sata connection for the hdd and firewire.

TC1 · 5 Feb 2007 at 07:36

Not bothered about a sata connection. Just needs to be a good enclosure that keeps the drive cool and quiet.

TC1 · 7 Feb 2007 at 10:25

What i am now after is a good 3.5 ext HardDrive enclosure that has USB and Firewire connections. Any ideas as to which one to go for?

jimblowscash · 7 Feb 2007 at 12:45

TC1 said:
What i am now after is a good 3.5 ext HardDrive enclosure that has USB and Firewire connections. Any ideas as to which one to go for?

yep any of the tried and tested lacie D2 ones, usually on this weeks offer ocuk!

squiffy · 7 Feb 2007 at 12:49

Buy a removable SATA/PATA caddy, not a enclosure. I've lost data with enclosures, not often but it has occured a couple of times. I've had a couple of disconnection problems too.
Caddies are faster as it's straight into the port, rather through USB. You don't need power adaptor or USB cable either.