HD and Enclosure Help

Well I recently ran into $1700. Most of it will be used to buy new furniture for my apartment. However my wife has another $1500 pending. With the $1500 Im looking to buy a HD with atleast 1.5TB of space, 7200RPM would be good, large cache, and atleast USB2.0 again eSATA would be good or firewire which ever is fastest. I will also need a compatible enclosure for said HD. Im not looking to spend a huge amount. Somewhere in the ball park of $100-$120 for all of it.

And now for the most important thing. I will be using it to store backups of movies, games, software, and incremental OS backups for both laptops. I will also be storing pictures, wallpapers, music, and college work. Pretty much anything and everything. I will not be using it to install software to and run said software from the external.

What are your thoughts?

Can you help me find some HDs that meet the requirements? Enclosures that meet the HDs requirements?

 

Have not had a chance to play with any of the 1 or 1.5 TB drives. I am hearing about firmware issues with some. Be aware.

Regarding enclosures. My only two suggestions would be externally powered and fan cooled.

Let me know what you wind up deciding on as I will probably be in the market for a similar set-up in the near future.

 

Ive read about the firmware issues. Any inparticular you are looking for or at and why?

 

I have always liked WD. Much like you, it would be for storage only so top performance is not required. I think they only come in 7200 RPM. A 16 MB cache is fine, 32 would be a bonus.

I will probably wind up with two. One as storage on my "in the planning phase" new tower and one in an external enclosure. Manufacturer and type of which is yet undecided. Although I am leaning towards the 3.0 esata which of course will need to be mated up to the proper hardware on my new tower as well as backwards compatible with my old tower which the Wife will inherit.

 

Any specific models your looking into? Not counting the WD 7200RPM HDs with the firmware problems.

 

I curious about the Green series of drives. The reason(s) being is they spin down when not in use. I would think this lower idle speed may lead to less heat when not in use. On the other hand this may also lead to more wear and tear on the hard drive. Also, it may lead to a slight decrease in performance when file transfer is first initiated.

It will probably be anywhere from 6 months to a year prior to my purchase and build. Right now all of these are in the running.
Had not look`d in a while. I see that all the above listed drives are either 32 or 64MB cache. Also the have 2TB now.

By the time I make my purchase who knows what will still be available or what advancements they will have made in SSD`s.

 

Of course we would love to help, but in the end it depends on your preference and budget.

your budget of $120 will only cover a bare 1.5T drive.

For hard drives 1TB and above, have a look here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2010150014 103530090 1035507776&name=7200 RPM

For external enclosures, have a look here http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010010092 1053807123&name=3.5"

For hard drives I would recommend WD or Seagate. For external enclosures I would recommend Vantec ones. From your requirements for an external hard drive, you only need a usb 2.0 enclosure, there is no need to spend extra for a firewire and esata interface.

Hope this helps....

 

This is the enclosure I have, I bought it on sale for $40.00 last year. It's well built and has a cooling fan. When I first bought it I had only 1X750gb sata seagate installed but I later added another 1gb sata drive.
I also have some of the cheaper $20.00 enclosures for my smaller 200gb drives, but for large expensive drives, I recommend something like the vantec, it'll keep the drive well protected.


http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/hard_drive_accessories/Vantec/NexstarMX/Page2.asp

 

All this talk got me thinking and poking around.

I kind of like this one if you are looking for a single drive enclosure.

 

I really like this enclosure as my backup.
Although this one is too small for what you want.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=365597

 

This may be of interest but make sure it meets your specs.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1419603&postcount=26

 

Interesting. It would be nice to have a multi drive type enclosure so I can expand as necessary. Possibly get a smaller HD say maybe 40-80Gbs or so and keep just OS backups there and on the larger HD keep all multimedia.

 

Both Thermaltake & the link below have 2 disk enclosures.

http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/premium-dual-sata-hard-drive-docking-station/