Making a standard internal drive external?

[furman]

Hi,
I am planning on replacing my desktop with a notebook. I have 2 300gb sata drives in my pc, 1 I use for backups and the other I keep mp3s etc on. I had a look at the hdd accessories section. I want something reliable that I can stick my hdd into and it won't lose the usb sync or anything. Any recommendations? Do I need to think about cooling or anything? 1 drive maybe connected all the time.

Thanks

 

[furman]

Hi,
I was looking at this one:
Icy Box External Enclosure IB-351ST-US-B Serial ATA to USB 2.0 - Black (HD-003-BT)
Aluminium housing with lattice mesh design.
- Hot Plug & Play
- Extremely quiet without exhaust fan
- Works in both vertical and horizontal positions
- Assembly without screwdrivers
- Supports SATA hard drives
- USB2.0 & SATA Combo connection to host computer (1m cables supplied)
Price: £28.95 (£34.02 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Does it need external power or can it be powered from USB?

Also is there any real difference with this one:
Enermax External Enclosure EB305C IDE/SATA to USB2.0 - Silver (HD-002-EN)
The Enermax case has blue leds and a stand - and it states external power. But is it not as good quality as the Icy Box case?

 

[furman]

I was looking at new SATA hard drives and noticed that some are SATA2, wtf is SATA 2? Will a SATA 2 drive work in any of these cases? I saw a WD SE 7200rpm 250gb SATA2 drive for £67.

Is it worth even getting a SATA drive as an external hdd?