Seagate or Western digital External HDD?

noyb said:

noob said:

I'm not sure I know enough to buy a drive and the casing, power supply, etc., and build it properly. Ideally, another 640GB Caviar Black(or a 750GB) like my internal would be a sweet external option....

I'm using a couple of 1TB WD Greens in an enclosure that has limited cooling ..
They seem to run reasonably cool for long periods.

I've been looking at one of These Enclosures for the next Build .. It looks like it has good cooling ...Then I'd probably use a WD Black in it.

But .. It might be better to wait for a USB <> eSATA 3 .. I wonder when they'll be available.
I'm also wondering if a 7200RPM drive can keep up with it ??

Night Hawk said:

noob said:

Night Hawk said:

No surprize at hearing that one! When you first started seeing usb externals out people complained up and down about the heat in the confined enclosures for the 3.5" models!

The ideal setup is simply taking a well cooled external enclosure you buy separately and insert a large capacity drive in that. That will make things a bit bulky however for those who want portability.

Well, curiosity bit, so I just opened up the case. There really is no room for airflow, much less a fan. The drive inside is a refurb'd 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM. So to compensate, as you can see, I found a little fan to blow on the couple vents on the back when I power the drive up. I figure it is better than nothing, given that there was a faint burnt smell from the HDD when I pulled it out(nothing visible though).

I'm not sure I know enough to buy a drive and the casing, power supply, etc., and build it properly. Ideally, another 640GB Caviar Black(or a 750GB) like my internal would be a sweet external option....I don't need to carry it around, I just want a backup of my internal in case something happens.

But since the computer expert in the family is a couple states away, I'll probably have to buy one. Hopefully the no-assembly-required drives are properly cooled.

Newegg has a tom of premade enclosures to look over there. Note the best run about $40 and up for those with real cooling! Newegg.com - External Enclosure, External Hard Drive Enclosure, USB External Enclosure, Multimedia External Enclosure

For a look there I would be serious about the Thermaltake BlacX model since that supports two 2tb HDs where others only upto 1tb for each drive plus the better cooling to start. Newegg.com - Thermaltake BlacX N0028USU External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5" & 3.5" USB 2.0 - External Enclosures

You guys have me thinking now....like maybe it wouldn't be beyond me to do this. Great links, and much food for thought while I wait for tax season to come to fruition. +rep.

I considered grabbing one just like the Thermaltake if not the same brand back in 2008 when first looking at external drives. I ended up pulling first the 500gb out of one and then simply yanked the 1tb drive out of the casing right out of the retail box without using externally first.

Both of those were WD Green Power drives as well as another 1tb ordered OEM from newegg. This is why I went with the 1tb Caviar Black edition for the new host drive since the GPs are best for storage!

Night Hawk said:

I considered grabbing one just like the Thermaltake if not the same brand back in 2008 when first looking at external drives. I ended up pulling first the 500gb out of one and then simply yanked the 1tb drive out of the casing right out of the retail box without using externally first.

Both of those were WD Green Power drives as well as another 1tb ordered OEM from newegg. This is why I went with the 1tb Caviar Black edition for the new host drive since the GPs are best for storage!

I wasn't aware of the difference between the Black and Green models until the link in noyb's post earlier....I'm learning something every day here, seems like. The Green does sound like the way to go.

For storage/backup I have the two 1tb GP drives still in use. With one sata port taken for the optical drive the first 500gb GP was removed for the new Black edition 1tb host. A 500gb Blue edition model however is being added into an old XP build for a fresh install of 7 Home Premium where I will simply drop the 500 GP in as a second storage drive for that case.

Well that's how you upgrade someone out of XP Pro on the old 250gb ide drive into 7! The next build for the family member will see 7 Pro however where the storage drive(500gb GP) simply gets moved along!

Some people do it anyway but I do not suggest any "green" power saving drive for the OS. They will have a lag going in and out of powersave mode.

Currently I have a WD Caviar Black 640GB for the OS, a 500GB WD AAKS model and a 500 GB Samsung model for internal storage. I have a 1.5TB "green" WD15EARS (in a WD Elements USB enclosure) for external storage. That is the one I may tranfer to an eSATA enclosure.

The Thermaltake docking stations don't interest me in particular for long term usage. They may be great for maintenance but I don't like having a bare drive sitting exposed. Any enclosure I look at has to have a fan. The Rosewill 358's get good ratings and the fan is a standard 80mm.

The older two 500gb WD models are AAKS drives used originally for the XP/Vista dual boot and never saw the problems seen when trying more then one install of 7 first being the 64bit beta and onto the RC 64. Each installation appeared to go on normally but problems with programs installed kept coming up.

Get this, the drive has no faults, no bad sectors having been bought at the tail end of '08 then installed internally back late Feb. '09. The same applies to Seagate drives there I imagine as well being geared for external energy efficiency as well as other brands.

The EAGLE model for a bit less is more on the idea of a fan cooled enclosure while 6cm is still a bit small. Newegg.com - EAGLE Consus ET-CSDU2J-BK DUAL 3.5&#34; SATA I&#47;II to USB 2.0 2-BAY JBOD External Enclosure - External Enclosures

Those are the two best for under $50 seen now. The next up is a pair of SIG with fans on the ends. Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Computer Accessories,External Enclosures,$50 - $75,Yes=

Now if price isn't a factor you could one step upto and pay twice as much for a 4 HD enclosure with temp monitor and 8cm fan seen on the AMS Venus model. Newegg.com - AMS VENUS ES2 DS-312SUES 3.5&#34; Black USB &#38; eSATA External Enclosure - External Enclosures

There you still only see it handle 1tb drives. Anyone for ICY? $269.99 Newegg.com - ICY DOCK MB561US-4S 4 Bay 3.5” SATA to eSATA Port Multiplier &#38; USB 2.0 Removable Aluminum External Hard Drive Enclosure for Mac &#38; PC - External Enclosures

It was interesting running into a guide on how to remove an external for internal showing the exact same model WD MyBook Essentials show in the blog. Western Digital MyBook Open Case Recover Data Scott Cramer wrote this.

While having it in the casing when first bought all you saw was the blue led strobing when busy but no drive sounds heard! When feeling the casing itself after some large transfers the casing was room temp.

I am now considering simply stuffing it back in for temp use only when helping someone upgrade out of any old XP case since most of those were running 250gb ide half the size of that. The second external of course was bought for additional internal storage and opened up the first day for immediate installation there.

Why internal? Lack of space on the pc desk here between other equipment like video and printers as well as the two monitor stands, extendable desk lamp with dimmer, usb hub for headset, cam, flash drives, etc. The tower sits down in it's own compartment not being a dust collector on the floor!

I did spot one external enclosure some time back however that saw twin 120 led fans for about $40- but no longer seen. That was certainly an eye catcher for cooling compared to the rest seen lately.

noyb said:

Connecting an external via eSATA may be a problem.
You'll probably have to reboot the computer before it'll recognize the eSATA ...
and do NOT disconnect it before you turn the computer OFF.

Several reboots may be required to fix the problem this'll cause.

The only reason I connect my externals via eSATA ...
Is if I want to boot from an operating system in the external.

noob said:

My uncle, who built this machine, recommended me going that route for the speed advantage over the USB 2.0 drive I have now. But from what you're saying, sounds like it could be troublesome....I guess I have some research to do.

I've been using eSATA external for quite sometime now and found a good program to plug and play externals HDDs: HotSwap!
Some more info on this thread.
I've been using it for over a year now and it works great. I can plug and play my eSATA external HD at anytime and no problems.
You will need your BIOS set to ACHI or RAID mode to be able to plug and play.
It will tell you if any files are being used and when it's safe to un-plug. Looks and works just like the default windows "Safely Remove Hardware" icon function.
The new version 5.0 is updated for Windows 7 and comes in 32bit and 64bit.

I added the eSATA to my desktop, SATA cable to backplate crossover to eSATA cable (no cards), the HotSwap program works great.
Was using the HotSwap program on my laptops eSATA and it was working great also, updated the BIOS and it hot swaps the eSATA on it's own now.

Here I would have to add in a separate controller card for eSata since the ports are already taken up by one optical and 5 sata HDs. That rules out connecting the eSata ports on the case as well.