3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
Sounds extremely specific, but in a way I can't see why such a product
wouldn't be the standard - external drives are about flexibility (so
USB+1394), SATA is the new format, and what's the point of having that
power brick externally?!
I found some units, in prices ranging from $60 to $100 - compared to
$20-50 for units with less features - and that's even without a
built-in AC adapter, and most looke shady anyway. Maybe you know
better?
One thing I don't care about is an external SATA interface.
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
Binba <drorworld@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sounds extremely specific, but in a way I can't
> see why such a product wouldn't be the standard
They are becoming that with the exception of the internal power.
> - external drives are about flexibility (so USB+1394), SATA is the new format,
Yes.
> and what's the point of having that power brick externally?!
Basically USB and 1394/firewire cant supply enough
power for a 3.5" drive. Its fine for a laptop 2.5" drive.
> I found some units, in prices ranging from $60 to $100 - compared to
> $20-50 for units with less features - and that's even without a built-in
> AC adapter, and most looke shady anyway. Maybe you know better?
Yes, that there are some real advantages in eSATA, particularly
much faster and you can see the SMART data trivially. Not quite
as convenient cabling wise and far fewer desktop systems have
a eSATA port, but its trivial to add if its got SATA internally.
Its technically possible to have all 3, eSATA, USB2, 1394/firewire.
> One thing I don't care about is an external SATA interface.
You should, its got real advantages and isnt
that hard to do when the drive is a SATA drive.
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
On 23 Dec 2006 03:46:23 -0800, "Binba" <drorworld@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>Sounds extremely specific, but in a way I can't see why such a product
>wouldn't be the standard
Because being less picky tends to result in much lower cost.
If you have the USB and/or firewire interface to the system,
what will it matter if SATA or PATA drive inside? Could be
anything, so long as you can find a replacement drive if the
present one fails... but if the present one fails you have
to wonder why it failed, and if making important backups or
other data stores, whether it might be more prudent to try
another model of enclosure next time.
Further, everyone is on a kick to have quieter encosures,
those that are fanless seem quite popular. By keeping the
PSU external you reduce the amount of heat produced inside,
and since small brick switchers are essentially a commodity
item and reduce the size of the external (whole
drive/product) case needed, may also be cheaper to make as a
finished product. It also means that should your supply
fail, you have a reasonable chance of getting a replacement
instead of a great amount of research trying to find a
drop-in replacement with same form-factor at much higher
cost, or having the budget or ability to do a repair on the
internal supply.
The typical internal supply these days is crap on anything
but the high cost products. Might run a couple years, we
won't know about current generation products for a little
while longer, but they're certainly not made as well for the
consumer market as they used to be for SCSI external HDD or
tape drives, etc.
> - external drives are about flexibility
Seems more like they're about portability or lack of time or
space to install an internal. If you want flexible, it need
not support 1394 since there's practically nothing that
supports 1394 but not USB. Maybe some old Apple stuff
without USB2, but you're already talking about a potentially
high priced enclosure so a USB2 card is a trivial expense on
a per-system, as needed basis.
> (so
>USB+1394), SATA is the new format, and what's the point of having that
>power brick externally?!
See above, and you seem to be presuming you don't have the
other option but you do... it merely costs more for a decent
product, and like all more costly products where the average
consumer can't adequately discriminate what more they're
getting for their dollar (capacity alone seems to be the
largest factor in addition to the brand if they have a
personal preference), they'll tend to pay less if they can't
justify the gain from spending more.
>I found some units, in prices ranging from $60 to $100 - compared to
>$20-50 for units with less features - and that's even without a
>built-in AC adapter, and most looke shady anyway. Maybe you know
>better?
You have to take it on a product by product basic, instead
of trying to lump all the factors together as you have.
>
>One thing I don't care about is an external SATA interface.
It's usually higher performance than firewire or USB2. If
you want versatile rather than high performing, maybe you
don't really need USB or firewire at all, a gigabit NAS
enclosure might be more flexible, providing it isn't some
kind of proprietery interface that requires a windows driver
on client systems.
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
"Binba" <drorworld@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1166874383.376509.12100@80g2000cwy.googlegrou ps.com...
> Sounds extremely specific, but in a way I can't see why such a product
> wouldn't be the standard...
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
Heat and ability to replace are reasonable reasons to keep PSUs
external, although I've never experienced one of this new, lightweight
PSUs fail. External enclosures are sleek, until I have to lug around
that brick with its cables, which ends up taking more volume than the
drive. I'm sure that if I designed my own little enclosure, sticking
the PSU to the case would be the first thing I'd do.
There's nothing that supports 1394 but not USB, but somehow all 1394s
offer daisy-chaining and no USBs offer extra ports, and not all
computers have an abudance of either.
Anyway, all this went totally off-topic... I was asking for specific
MODELS that you'd recommend from your experience.
kony wrote:
> See above, and you seem to be presuming you don't have the
> other option but you do...
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
On 24 Dec 2006 01:52:35 -0800, "Binba" <drorworld@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Heat and ability to replace are reasonable reasons to keep PSUs
>external, although I've never experienced one of this new, lightweight
>PSUs fail. External enclosures are sleek, until I have to lug around
>that brick with its cables, which ends up taking more volume than the
>drive. I'm sure that if I designed my own little enclosure, sticking
>the PSU to the case would be the first thing I'd do.
Then why don't you fasten that power brick to the case - use epoxy
like JB Weld. Then afix some pegs to wind the cords onto.
Personally I would not have a case for an external drive - just the
cable and brick. It's cooler leaving the drive open to the air.
--
"All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient
and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of
God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is
the task of religion to fit man into this lawfulness. Religion
must remain an outlet for people who say to themsleves, 'I am
not the kind of person I want to be'."
--Frank Herbert, "Dune"
If you find it too expensive, rather than getting a lower
reliability and non-redundant external my advice would be
using an internal, networked drive. If you just can't for
whatever reason, there are a few more on same site linked
above, (credit to Timothy Daniels for this link),
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Binba <drorworld@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Heat and ability to replace are reasonable reasons to keep PSUs
> external, although I've never experienced one of this new, lightweight
> PSUs fail. External enclosures are sleek, until I have to lug around
> that brick with its cables, which ends up taking more volume than the
> drive. I'm sure that if I designed my own little enclosure, sticking
> the PSU to the case would be the first thing I'd do.
It is also a safety problem. The exteral enclosures are a bit bulky
because of insulation. If you put them into an enclosure, the enclusure
would have tpo be able to take that bulk, makink it look far less
sleek. But in princple, I agree with you.
> There's nothing that supports 1394 but not USB, but somehow all 1394s
> offer daisy-chaining and no USBs offer extra ports, and not all
> computers have an abudance of either.
That is because it FireWire supports daisy-chaining, while USB does
not. In FireWire you get the daisy-caining capablity very, very cheap
with the interface-chip. For USB, you have to put in a basically
separate USB HUB. Personally I thk thet FireWire is a significantly
superiour design to USB. Side note: FireWire can deliver enough
power for a normal 3.5" HDD in the high-power port.
> Anyway, all this went totally off-topic... I was asking for specific
> MODELS that you'd recommend from your experience.
If you put in low-heat HDDs (Samsumg!), the AGROSY enclosures
are cheap and functional. Not too pretty, though.
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
Looks like CoolDrives (http://www.cooldrives.com/nasadrenwiou.html) are
the coolest drives indeed... now if only it was $40 cheaper and with a
1394 port :-)
I understand the issues about integrating a power supply (though with
the above implementation it looks like they knew what they were doing),
but through my research I also found out that 1394 support for SATA
enclosures is just as rare, for some reason. Where I work all the
hook-ups are 1394, and everyone calls external HDD's "firewire drives."
Any port besides 1394 on an enclosure would look like a weird beast.
But as you said, every computer with 1394 has USB...
So all things considered, I'll probably go with an eSATA+USB solution.
What do you think about these candidates?
Re: 3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC?
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Binba <drorworld@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Looks like CoolDrives (http://www.cooldrives.com/nasadrenwiou.html) are
> the coolest drives indeed... now if only it was $40 cheaper and with a
> 1394 port :-)
> I understand the issues about integrating a power supply (though with
> the above implementation it looks like they knew what they were doing),
> but through my research I also found out that 1394 support for SATA
> enclosures is just as rare, for some reason. Where I work all the
> hook-ups are 1394, and everyone calls external HDD's "firewire drives."
> Any port besides 1394 on an enclosure would look like a weird beast.
> But as you said, every computer with 1394 has USB...
> So all things considered, I'll probably go with an eSATA+USB solution.
> What do you think about these candidates?
No idea. I would suppose that everything supporting >=500GB also
supports much larger drives. Since you cannot buy 1TB drives
at this time, this looks like a pure marketing stunt (the "our
number is bigger"-BS the professional liars are so much in
love with...)
The single bay model has an outboard power brick. The larger units have
internal power supplies and fans. Just about all single drive enclosures
now have external power bricks.
> If they have the next problem might be finding a distributor
FireWire Depot carries the single bay Sohotank, as does Wiebetech under
the "TrayDock" moniker.
3.5" external SATA HDD housing w/ USB+fireware interfaces and internal AC? 
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