how do HD enclosures work?

[amnios]

What's the deal with multiple drive enclosures?

How do they connect back to the motherboard and are there any speed issues compared to just straight hard sata 3/gb wiring to the motherboard on an internal drive?

I'm thinking I'd like to get a 2 - 4 bay enclosure and use RAID as I dont want to add that many heat producing HD's into my case where they is already enough heat trying to be exhausted by my case from my i7, gtx 280 and dedicated physx 9600GT(which itself exhausts directly inside the case!)

help!

 

[KonaKona]

You might be worrying about your temperatures too much, unless it's getting very toasty in there (at least 50C, probably more like 60C) then I wouldn't worry about it.

What kind of CPU temps are you getting? Case and fan configuration?

 

[amnios]

50C is nearly idle and certainly under heavy gaming load it can reach into the 70's

but i cant say its just because of temps I want an enclosure.... if the speed is the same I would love to have a raid encloser.... much easier to access and I can transport it anywhere! even... uh.. work? LOL.

 

[KonaKona]

Well, in order to get any speed advantage from RAID you would have to get one that used eSATA. If your computer has an eSATA port in the back then you are fine. I believe that if need be you can hook up an eSATA drive to an SATA port with the proper cable as well. Although USB 2.0 speeds are nice, RAID isn't going to make that any faster, and I would think the same for firewire.

 

[amnios]

ok so Esata is the best standard that exists right now?

My Rampage 2 Extreme likely has an esata port.

I'm still fuzzy on what I should be looking for. I should repost my question as...

"I know nothing about this at all but want it"... "how do I do it?"

So I can buy any hard drive or do I need an Esata hard drive as you suggest I need an esata enclosure?