external hdd enclosures?
 

i've got a couple big drives in my machine, and they're pissing me off, so i think i'm going to get one of those relatively inexpensive (like 40-50) external firewire/usb2 enclosures. but, i'm concerned about drive heat and whatnot. it should be plenty fast, since i just use these drives for data storage and media files like mp3's and stuff that play all the time. but i figured it'd also be something i could put someplace safe when i got out of town or something so something doesn't happen to my rather irreplacable data.

has anybody used these? is there a concern over heat buildup killing the drive , especially really early? that's really my only concern, is that the heat will wear down the drive quick, they're 7200 rpm wd drives... but, it's cheaper than spending $400 on a maxtor external...

As long as the stay in a cool place away from sunlight if you work by a window, dont worry about the heat. I've seen the enclosures without built in fans used 24/7 and ran with no problem. 10K+ rpm is where you need to start worrying about heat.

ok, that's good. they're 7200's, but the 10k will stay in the computer.

yeah, i work by a window, but do you honestly think i ever open the shades? sunlight sucks!

i just remember i used to have a buslink usb with an 80gb 5400rpm in it and it used to get hot ass hell to the touch outside, and these are 7200's. that buslink was also slow as hell, but i'm hoping that usb2.0 or firewire will be fast enough. just wanna make sure these drives live because i'd like to use them later in machines, and the data is pretty important.

Just try not to get the ones with sound isolation and all that stuff because those contain the heat even more. Just go for something aluminum.

Oh common, where's the modder inside of you? Buy one, gut it, and build your own enslosure. Then you can be sure of the heat issues. :cool: :D

Anyway, hope you find a good one.

lol.. yeah. newegg seemed to have some fairly decent ones with fans and stuff pretty cheap, most of them both usb2 and firewire capable.

probably just buy 1 to start with and make sure i'm happy with it.

I know that feeling, since I discovered BF1942 I have translucent houseplants :D ...

wish i had more time to play games... lately my skill has dropped a lot since i play so little :(

ok, i just realized i'm a dumbass. for about the same price, and cheaper if i go that route, i can just build me a lan server. i was going to do that anyway, this version would just be a little less fancy.

i could even use pretty much all parts i have laying around. somewhere around here i have a brand new asus cusl2-c, i've got memory and all that other junk, all i need is a processor. i have a maxtor udma 100 card to run the drives, slap xp pro on it and whee! i have a server. duh.

should i use the asus board, or just get a new biostar unit or something with an amd chip? just looking for a cheap solution to get these drives out of my system, i think the asus would be plenty fast for this.