Internal Drive+Enclosure or External Drive

[runevirage]

Hi, I'm not very familiar with storage solutions so I was wondering if you guys could help me out. I'm looking to buy a 1TB+ drive for backup. External drives seem like more elegant solutions but when I looked on Newegg many reviews seem to suggest that they are not long lived (e.g. break within weeks/months). Is this true? If so, are internal drives + enclosures better? Or do any of you have better solutions that I don't know about (like I said I'm not that familiar with the storage department). Thanks.

 

[Mussels]

externals tend to live longer actually, just make sure you get a model thats fan cooled, and dont leave it on 24/7 or drop it.

there is also a link in my sig (the red one) with some fancy external enclosures.

 

[runevirage]

externals tend to live longer actually, just make sure you get a model thats fan cooled, and dont leave it on 24/7 or drop it.

there is also a link in my sig (the red one) with some fancy external enclosures.

Cool, could you give me an example of a model that is fan cooled? They all seem to look the same to me (brickish).

 

[Mussels]

Cool, could you give me an example of a model that is fan cooled? They all seem to look the same to me (brickish).

both of mine are fan cooled. they're in the link i mentioned.

just look on newegg or something, it'll be rather apparent if they have a fan.

 

[REVHEAD]

Western Digital Passport and Mybook editions are perfect for these situations, Passport can allso be uses as a removable media soloution replacing a smaller thumbdrive and only as large as your wallet in your back pocket. Western Digital drives allso tend to last for years not months.

 

[Mussels]

oh and dont forget what connection method you want. USB 2.0 is the most common and cheapest, but its veeeeeery slow by modern standards.

 

[runevirage]

oh and dont forget what connection method you want. USB 2.0 is the most common and cheapest, but its veeeeeery slow by modern standards.

About how fast is eSata in comparison to USB 2.0 and SATA II? And do most enclosures/external drives include this?

 

[Mussels]

About how fast is eSata in comparison to USB 2.0 and SATA II? And do most enclosures/external drives include this?

USB 2.0: 35MB/s at best. 30MB/s is common.

SATA-II and E-SATA are the same thing really, they can do 300MB/s

they're both common, but USB is the predominant one.

 

[Stearic]

Does active cooling matter all that much if the drive is only for backup i.e. occasional, use?

A good aluminum enclosure and a decent SATA drive should do the trick I feel. I am using a 320GB 2.5" drive in a Vantec nexstar sx enclosure for backups from my notebook, and it works nicely..cool enough for the duration of the backup and then some. My notebook doesn't have an eSATA interface anyway.
http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/pro_list/80

 

[Mussels]

Does active cooling matter all that much if the drive is only for backup i.e. occasional, use?

A good aluminum enclosure and a decent SATA drive should do the trick I feel. I am using a 320GB 2.5" drive in a Vantec nexstar sx enclosure for backups from my notebook, and it works nicely..cool enough for the duration of the backup and then some. My notebook doesn't have an eSATA interface anyway.
http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/pro_list/80

not really, no. you need one with a fan if you intend to leave it running for long periods of time (you know, like you guy a 1TB drive and then copy 1TB of data to it then and there - its gunna get hot)


2.5" drives dont get as hot, they run fairly cool.