External Hard Drive Question

I'm looking to buy an external hard drive for home use. I've looked on eBay
and have seen several for sale that appear to be a kit of some sort with a
standard 3.5" hard drive in it. They advertise USB 1.1 and 2.0 compatible
and hot swappable with out rebooting.

My question is does any of you have any experience with these? After all
isn't that all an external drive from Western Digital is?

Thanks,
Brian

"diablo" <nomail@spam.not> wrote in message
news:De-dnafBp83LOYjYnZ2dnUVZ_tednZ2d@giganews.com...
> I'm looking to buy an external hard drive for home use. I've looked on
> eBay and have seen several for sale that appear to be a kit of some sort
> with a standard 3.5" hard drive in it. They advertise USB 1.1 and 2.0
> compatible and hot swappable with out rebooting.
>
> My question is does any of you have any experience with these? After all
> isn't that all an external drive from Western Digital is?

How handy are you? For < $15 you can get a 3.5" USB 2.0 enclosure and mount
any PATA drive you like into it. I'm sure that there are SATA enclosures out
there as well, but no idea what they cost.

Now, if you want the fancy USB enclosure that has a "backup" button, then
you'll spend a bit more for a complete kit.

diablo <nomail@spam.not> wrote:

> I'm looking to buy an external hard drive for home use. I've looked
> on eBay and have seen several for sale that appear to be a kit of
> some sort with a standard 3.5" hard drive in it. They advertise USB
> 1.1 and 2.0 compatible and hot swappable with out rebooting.

> My question is does any of you have any experience with these?

Yes, plenty do.

> After all isn't that all an external drive from Western Digital is?

Yes, but one big advantage with the cases is that when you
put a drive in them, the drive retains the full 3-5 year warranty.

All of the packaged external drives from the hard
drive manufacturers only have a 1 year warranty.

"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4nlqlpFaoqloU1@individual.net...
> diablo <nomail@spam.not> wrote:
>
>> I'm looking to buy an external hard drive for home use. I've looked
>> on eBay and have seen several for sale that appear to be a kit of
>> some sort with a standard 3.5" hard drive in it. They advertise USB
>> 1.1 and 2.0 compatible and hot swappable with out rebooting.
>
>> My question is does any of you have any experience with these?
>
> Yes, plenty do.
>
>> After all isn't that all an external drive from Western Digital is?
>
> Yes, but one big advantage with the cases is that when you
> put a drive in them, the drive retains the full 3-5 year warranty.
>
> All of the packaged external drives from the hard
> drive manufacturers only have a 1 year warranty.
>

Hmmm, makes good sense guys. I don't need no stinking one button backup,
think I'll look into the cases and a 3-1/2" drive with a 5 year warranty.

Thanks,
Brian