Please recommend an enclosure

[Canuck1]

I am shopping for an enclosure. Actually, two, but for now, I just want an idea of what to look for and which ones are the most recommended.

Do you think it should have a fan or is it okay to be fan-less because of the aluminum shell? In the past, many critics emphasized getting one with a fan but maybe now it's not essential? I have been using a Vantec Nexstar 3 enclosure that has the eSATA and USB interface for connections and so far it's been fine. But, I want to make sure I am getting a decent one and I just discovered there are a few makes and models that come with a built-in fan. I thought it might be a good idea. However, some of the newer terabyte drives are these 'green' models and don't produce a lot of heat for a hard drive. I might not need an enclosure that has a fan for such drives. However, if I wanted to house a drive I ALREADY have, should I bother with an enclosure that has a built-in fan?

Please recommend and suggest an enclosure. I thought external drives and enclosures would be pretty popular with laptop owners at least until solid state drives come down in price. I think it is the best way to store data and increase the storage capacity for your laptop. It's also useful for desktops as well if you store a lot of data.

I did try to google for choices and did a search of the forums to no avail. If you think a fan-less enclosure is sufficient, please suggest a brand/model but if you think I should get one with a fan, please state why and suggest a model! Thanks!

Oh yeah, these are the only ones with fans that I know of that might be good and are available in my area:

Antec MX-1 Actively Cooled External Hard Drive Enclosure USB2.0 eSATA Black

Thermaltake MAX4

If I don't need one with a fan, I am thinking the one I have is sufficient. What do you think?:
Vantec NexStar3 NST-360SU

 

[Sad Panda]

I think this one is pretty cool. If you have a bunch of External 5 inch drive slots ( my comp came with 4) just plug this thing in there and you got yourself 3 more hard drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999141

 

[Alnitaktek]

I am currently using the Nexstar enclosures and find that they really do run warm, so now i am looking for an enclosure with better heat dissipation. i do believe that the cool master x-craft enclosures are better at releasing the heat generated by the HDD.

Does any one know what the enclosure circuitry does to the throughput speeds of the drive and also, does it impede the I/O ?

I would love to know what is the best performance combination..
Cheers...

 

[semysig]

I have a Thermaltake aluminum fanless esata/usb2 external enclosure.
It runs cooler than the internal hdd in the laptop! The laptop runs blazing hot, but still.
Currently the HDD in it reads 104F. I found this sweet prog called Speedfan that'll tell you that on any capable drive, as well as cpu temp, and has fan speed control if you're MB can do that. Freeeee too
I got the enclosure on ebay for like $40, $10 shipping, so figure $50.
I'm very happy with it.

Word of advice, DON'T use the USB2, use the eSATA. USB is torture for a file of any size. I thought it was broken till a friend told me it's really that bad. My ipod takes just as long to put a movie to too. USB sssssuuuuuuhuuuucks! Garbage standard, always has been.
Firewire is good too. It should be half as fast as eSATA, but I dunno if that's true "real world".
Current fastest HDD's do 120MBps sustained thruput. FYI, Cardbus only does 100mbps AFAIK.

 

[semysig]

Does anybody know of any fanless, small, SCSI enclosures like the Thermaltake?
I mean SCSI out, SATA/IDE inside.
Can't find anything. I have an old comp it'd be useful for.