External Hard Drive Enclosures?

A

Alex3951

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Dec 16, 2006
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after doing a little reading on the subject of external hard drives, I've decided to go with the option of getting an internal drive and just getting the enclosure seperatly. I'm thinking of getting a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 32MB SATA II. But I haven't decided on an enclosure. I've heard good things about the "Antec MX-1". But i was wondering if anybody here has any recommendations on a good eSata enclosure. I'm on a budget, so something fairly cheap would be good. :)
 
I'm happy with the MX-1 I got from buy.com for ~$10AR a couple weeks ago. Too bad the rebate expired for that one already. Judging by some reviews on Newegg, I guess that I'm lucky that I received one of the quiet ones. I was scared that I'd have to format my drive (I already had data on it) for it to work, but luckily that wasn't so. I've only used the USB2 mode, and I'm really happy with everything so far. Just not so crazy about the looks.
 
I've heard good things about the "Antec MX-1".
Click to expand...
And you've heard correctly.

If you don't like that one, at least get something with active cooling. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for.
 
My dad just bought an Antec MX-1 enclosure, and indeed it is a solid, and recommended (by me :p) enclosure

I however have 2 Vantec Nexstar 3's and I love them

When I first did research into what enclosure to buy I found that there really isn't a substantial difference in their 'quality', assuming of course we're talking about name brands like Antec and Vantec, it seems to come down to the aesthetics of the enclosure more then anything ... again, assuming we are talking about name brand enclosures

I have heard in general to stay away from enclosures that have active cooling (aka a fan) and just stick with the aluminum ones ... but antec has proved me wrong it seems (perhaps someone can elaborate more for me on why active cooled enclosures were/are considered the poorer choice, because I forget (its been a while). Also recognize of course that an active cooling enclosure will be bigger then a standard aluminum, again its at the buyers discretion, I personally prefer to have a smaller enclosure, but thats just me

Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY a "Rock Mobile Storage" enclosure, they look awesome and whatnot ... but they SUCK SUCK SUCK, i've had 3 (replacements from the company) fail on me in less then a month, avoid this shit like a plague

Happy hunting
 
I've found most external enclosures to be pretty poorly-constructed. I would certainly go for one with a fan; I've heard of too many LaCie external hard drives (which don't have active cooling) dying. Ideally they would spin down the disk when idle, but very few do that.
 
cool, thanks for all the replies. i was also looking at the vantec 3 one, but since it doesn't have the fan, i think the better choice will be the mx-1 from everything that i've read here.
 
I use the Thermaltake MAX 4 with the Samsung 500gb spinpoint. Has esata and USB 2.0. I don't have any heating issue being on all day. The aluminum cover extracts the heat from the hd into the air. Some reviews on the newegg say they have a hard time putting on the encloser. I didn't have this problem it was pretty easy and is sturdy. Then again reviews on newegg should be taken with a big block of salt.
Some towers don't even have a fan blowing on the air and inside a tower would be more hot than outside. So I wouldn't think a fan would make that much of a difference, plus the noise of a fan on the external hd? On my other rig where I did not have a fan on the hds the external hd was cooler than the hd inside the tower.

It is a little coslty but for some reason I thought I paid $15 for it?
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145029
 
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