External hard drives?

L

LancelotSA

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OK, we have been bombarded with specials on here YAY! ;)

Now the thing is all I am really after is some hard drive space. I can either go the way of getting this 1Tb hard drive and then using one of the cradles I already have :

drive3.jpg

R683 incl

or I can get one of these :

drive2.jpg

R911 incl

drive1.jpg

R849 incl

Now my question is why would you choose one over the other? Those makes mean nothing to me really. Is one really so much better than the other when factoring in price too?
 
Esquire FTW

1TB for that price is incredibly good, and its a .12 with 32mb cache.

The other brands, no thanks :)
 
Not sure what you asking, are you comparing types of HDD or enclosure???

For hard drives, it mostly comes down to personal choice. I have seen all brands of disk fail equally, so will normally go for the cheapest - when comparing Seagate, WD, Samsung etc.

For enclosures; again I would buy the cheapest with e-sata....
 
Gah ..... Esquire ....... doesn't help the man in the street.
 
Conradl said:
Not sure what you asking, are you comparing types of HDD or enclosure???

For hard drives, it mostly comes down to personal choice. I have seen all brands of disk fail equally, so will normally go for the cheapest - when comparing Seagate, WD, Samsung etc.

For enclosures; again I would buy the cheapest with e-sata....
Click to expand...

Well the first part was me thinking out aloud with the hope that someone would point some issue out that I have missed. That is that I can get the hard drive and then use an enclosure that I have at home that currently only has an 80Gb in. I'd need to make sure this was a SATA enclosure and not IDE (you see something that discussing this has already brought to my attention). If I was not able to use the cradle I have I would need to buy one for a few hundred bucks which would then put me in the price range of the enclosures.

Then with the enclosures I was really enquiring about personal views on those two that I showed. The price is similar but why would people prefer one over the other.
 
Conradl said:
Oh, ok. I would find out if either enclosure has esata. If not, then go for the below: After using esata you will be very glad you got it....

http://www.pricecheck.co.za/product...SATA_USB2+Vantec+Nexstar+3+(FEE-V360SUK5345)/

with a 1TB disk.
Click to expand...

I obviously could be wrong with everything I say here as IT is not my field and I am not really wanting to research before saying this but....

My understanding is that all larger hard drives are SATA and the smaller ones are IDE. In other words a 1Tb drive would need to be SATA(?). If this drive was then in an external enclosure this would then need to be a SATA enclosure. Now from what I can see from your link eSATA merely means external SATA. so these would have to be eSATA?

EDIT : By the way I think I may have that exact cradle but in blue. Anyone know how I can tell if it is SATA or IDE (or both?) as it says nothing about that on it?
 
Last edited:
Most new drives are SATA, regardless of the size. A SATA disk will require a SATA enclosure. eSATA allows you to connect the enclosure to your PC/Laptop at almost the same speed as an internal SATA connection, instead of using USB.

The Vantec comes with a bracket that plugs into your SATA port on your motherboard. You can still use a SATA enclosure on a machine with no SATA if you connect with USB....
 
Ok, I thought I'd research myself. I see that eSATA is the connector. It is quicker than USB.

I see the Samsung in my OP mentions USB but the Freecom does not mention the connector type but some research online seems to indicate USB only. I have to admit to not seeing eSATA myself yet.

There is another problem, as Mephisto was trying to point out to me and I misunderstood, and that is that my laptop does not have an eSATA connector.

EDIT : Sorry that this came after your post above Conrad but I had issues posting all of a sudden.
 
No eSATA connector isn't a train smash, USB 2.0 is fine, so any standard SATA enclosure will work fine.
 
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