Need External Enclosure/Hard Drive Advice

Hello good people of OCforums. I need advice on two purchases.

1) I need advice on an external enclosure that could pre-loaded with 2 hard drives, but preferably empty (with the capacity for 2 drives). This enclosure will be for the backup of every song, video, cd/dvd, picture, etc. that I have. I lost everything I had on my last external hard drive as it died and nothing wasn't backed up, I can't risk that happening again, so "One Touch Backup" or RAID1 or something to that effect is necessary. I will be using it very regularly so speed is an issue, and from what I'm reading, eSata is the way to go. If it already has drives loaded, they should be 1tb+ (individually). Doesn't matter if the enclosure handles hot-swapping.

2) I also need advice on another enclosure (empty) in which I plan on changing hard drives frequently (along with hard drive interfaces -IDE, SATA, *laptop interface*, things like that). Not too concerned if it's eSata, Firewire, or USB 2.0. Hot-swapping would be great on this one.

The price doesn't really matter. I'd of course spend less money rather than more money, but I'll pay what I must to get what I need.

I feel like a jerk and like I'm asking everyone to do my homework for me, but I need this done right, and done right the first time. (I am looking at lots of products but I want other opinions).

and let me know if you think there's a better way to do what I'm wanting than what I laid out. Thanks in advance.

For the external you want to hot swap with alot, why not grab a hdd dock?

I bought one of these last week. Like it so far.

For the other, what about this?

Kinda pricey, but Lian Li should be good quality stuff.

Western Digital has 2 drive externals that can do an internal RAID 1. Take note that the listed capacity on the box is the drives in RAID0/JBOB. I think they just released them in 4GB (2GB in RAID1) but they're pricey. I don't know much about empty 2 drive externals, so hopefully somebody else can post.

Edit: The blacX is great. Get the esata one if you got the ports, well worth the extra 10 bucks.

That Lian Li looks really great. I'm just wondering two things. Does is support SATAII, and does it shut on and off with the PC - or does it have its own power switch/ac adaptor?

and *optimally* what I'd like for the other one is a slide-in docking station that takes IDE and SATA, but so far I don't see any really.

I might end up having to to get two different ones, a SATA one and an IDE one... But then, I need to be able to hook up a laptop hard drive (for which I have the adapter) but can I even use an adapter with a slide-in docking station?

I have one of these to house two 1.5 Seagates since I have a laptop. I got it last December, and have not had any major problems. However, I do not use the built in RAID function. I use a Rosewill eSATA express card (RC-605) and I get decent speeds; I cna get about 50MB/s from internal to the enclosure.

A minor problem is that it does get a tad bit warm if you leave it on for extended periods of time (all day). I'd imagine if you're just doing a back up once a day (and turn it on for only an hour or so) it would be fine.

For the backup... why not look at a Qnap?

They are pricey, but you can buy them empty, and they offer a bunch of features.

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=82 is a good start, but from the menu on the left, you can browse them all.

fritzman said:

For the backup... why not look at a Qnap?

They are pricey, but you can buy them empty, and they offer a bunch of features.

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=82 is a good start, but from the menu on the left, you can browse them all.

Click to expand...

It's a nice thought, but I can't justify shelling out another 150 minimum to get a server I don't really need. Later on I might decide to get one, though.


At this point I'm still looking at the Lian Li EX-20 (which comes with an eSata card, which is great because I just realized my board doesn't have eSata onboard) for my backup.

Still not sure what I'm going to do for my other task, though.
I need a docking station(s) that will handle standard IDE, SATA, and Laptop IDE-whatever interface hard drives.

I also need to start looking at what hard drives I want to get, any suggestions are great. I've been out of the loop for awhile since I've been broke, but I'm finally getting back into some money again so I can buy new toys (although all of these things will make me money

Well I use a BlacX for sata drives and one of these for older IDE drives. If you search for 'usb to ide' in ebay you can find several different types. You probably want one with an external power adapter for the hd.