external hard drive question

[drummerdude]

would it be better just to buy one, or buy an internal hard drive and an enclosure? im not looking for insane amounts of storage just something like 250 gigs and and a usb 2.0 interface

 

[evongugg]

You have a choice between USB, Firewire, eSata. You can buy either IDE or SATA hard drives and can find different combinations of ports with the enclosure you build, normally:

USB+eSATA: SATA drive
USB: IDE drive
USB and Firewire: IDE drive

If you build you can always replace either the hard drive or enclosure.
Building will save you at least $50.00-$100.00 and you will have the satisfaction of having built it yourself to your specifications, including size and brand of hard drive.
Thanks,

evongugg

 

[PCcashCow]

I would say if you have no real care for specs other than size and interface, just buy one with the drive in it. Many times (in the States) I've seen 250GB+ external enclosures on sale or rebated. Most all run on USB 2.0 anyway.

 

[FITCamaro]

I wouldn't exactly call putting an internal hard drive inside an external enclosure "building" anything. If you're not capable of doing it you shouldn't be driving a car, or living for that matter.

Just buy a drive and a nice enclosure. Lets you pick what it looks like. And you can either get just a cheap enclosure or a really nice one. You might also save some money. The only nice thing about retail external drives is that sometimes they come bundled with software to make backing up files to an external drive easier.

One thing to try and get now that external SATA enclosures are out, is one with an eSATA interface. They still have USB but also allow you to use the new eSATA ports on a lot of newer motherboards that give full SATA3.0 speed rather than USB2.0s more limited speed.

 

[evongugg]

You also get a choice between plastic and aluminum enclosure and you can choose chipsets if you are knowledgeable or you can choose based on the ratings of others.

 

[JonathanDeane]

I have seen a 250GB external drive on tigerdirect.com with USB 2.0 and Firewire for $89 might want to check that out (I have the same one in 200GB)

Its this one but they dont sell them with the drives right now ?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=31389&CatId=1204

Anyway it works pretty good, I use it with Ghost to back up all my machines.