External HDD Enclosure Help

I've managed to get my hands on a 320GB WD SATA Hard Disk for free, hence I'm trying to find a HDD Enclosure for it, problem is all I can find which are cheap are the USB2 ones.

I've been looking and looking for a NAS Enclosure but can't find any for SATA, they are all IDE, same deal with FireWire which I can find loads for IDE and none for SATA again. I was hoping if anyone here knew of any Enclosures which are pretty good and at least have either a RJ45 or a FireWire port on it?


PSN/Xbox 360 ID - Ianwoollam

Micro direct seem to have a large selection depending on what size disk you have

[www.microdirect.co.uk]

[www.microdirect.co.uk]

[www.microdirect.co.uk]

[www.microdirect.co.uk]

I use one of these (both SATA (or eSATA if you have an eSATA port) and USB2): [www.scan.co.uk]

This one has USB and firewire [www.scan.co.uk], though apparently the Firewire on IcyBoxes can lead to data corruption. Never used firewire for a hard drive, so I wouldn't know myself. Can say that the SATA/USB2 one I use has given me no issues whatsoever, so if there is a problem with them it's solely when going through the firewire port.

For RJ45 you'll want a NAS box (Network Attached Storage). The data rate is obviously slower than either firewire or USB2, and miles slower than SATA, but here are some: [www.scan.co.uk]

Well I did want to hook it upto my router so my PC didn't have to be on 24 hours a day... But come to think of it, my PC is always on 24 hours a day anyway Unfortunatly like so many gav, that Icybox is for IDE and wouldn't work and as it always seems with the NAS ones all of the cheaper ones seem to be IDE and if it is sata, designed for RAID and is way too expensive (£100+)


PSN/Xbox 360 ID - Ianwoollam

Ianwoollam Wrote:
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> Unfortunatly like so many gav, that
> Icybox is for IDE and wouldn't work

Ah yes, my apologies. The first one (SATA & USB2) is a SATA host though.

Best I can find. [www.scan.co.uk]

man I'm so tempted with that one I'd prefer RAID 1 though tbh as I'd be backing up all my important work and RAID 0 will just be asking for trouble!


PSN/Xbox 360 ID - Ianwoollam

then use raid 3!

If it's just for backing up, then if you didn't catch it in the VT forums, I've just bought a 750gb drive to back up my data drives and an internal enclosure to stick it in - more specifically this one. Just slide the drive in (no screws or guides to stick on the drive), and providing your SATA controller can do hotswapping (like most do) then the drive should be picked up instantly by the OS. Awesome piece of kit for £10. I bought 2 so I can move data around for fun when I'm video editing, and another for work too.

Well I have the same board as you so that should do hotswapping Quick question though Doesn't it wreck the hard drive when you take it out? (Obviously when the drive isn't in use I mean )


PSN/Xbox 360 ID - Ianwoollam



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2007 01:07PM by Ianwoollam.

Ianwoollam Wrote:
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> Well I have the same board as you so that should
> do hotswapping Quick question though Doesn't it
> wreck the hard drive when you take it out?
> (Obviously when the drive isn't in use I mean )

Nope, SATA's designed for hotswapping. Some controllers even have the 'safely remove device' tray icon for SATA drives. Mine doesn't, but still not a problem. From the limited testing I've done, the Intel controller supports hotswapping, but the JMicron one (the SATA port near the I/O shield, above the top PCIe slot) doesn't. Annoyingly one of my Samsung drives only works on that controller, so I've hooked that socket up to the 2nd caddy.

Been backing up 540gb (from 2 320gb drives) using it today. Set it off at 7:30ish and it finished at 11:17am apparently. //edit: that was with the verification on too, so it would have taken half the time to do a backup only. Now all I'll have to do is an incremental backups, which will take barely any space at all, and using Acronis True Image, you can pick which backup too use, the base or any of the incremental addons images. Usefully TI allows you to mount backups as virtual drives too, so if I need to restore a single file or folder, then all I have to do is mount the image and it appears as an extra hard drive (with read or read/write properties as you choose). Pretty awesome. :D



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2007 02:38PM by gav.