External Hard Drive Enclosures
 

I'm needing an external hard drive enclosure. It needs to be SATA & IDE compatabile with USB2 and Firewire out.

I've been looking through the various selections from NewEgg and Tiger and all seem to be "ok" with cavaets like, "fried my drive"...."overheating"......"inferior construction"...etc.

If anyone is using a HD enclosure that fits the parameters I've indicated or has experience in this area, some assistance would be greatly appreciated.

David Bird

I've never seen an enclosure that supports both SATA and IDE drives. If they do exist, they will probably limit your choices even more. Probably better to get one of each. I have several of the Wiebetech enclosures. Have nothing but good things to say about them. I've also used a lot of G-Raid enclosures, and never had a problem.

This might help you...

Addonics Technologies - Making Data Storage Simple

I doubt anyone makes an external enclosure that accommodates both IDE and SATA drives. The engineering would have to be at least somewhat awkward.

This is one of the few external enclosures I know of that actually does keep a hard drive reasonably cool (the vast majority of external enclosures just let hard drives literally cook, virtually assuring a premature failure):

Newegg.com - Rosewill RX-358-S SLV (Silver) 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA Ext. Enclosure w/Int.80mm fan - External Enclosures

That's a SATA drive enclosure (will not accommodate an IDE drive) and connects to a computer via USB or eSATA (no firewire).

As I indicated in my initial post, there are many, many enclosures at NewEgg and Tiger Direct that accomodate both SATA and IDE drives. Finding them is not the problem, finding an enclosure that is safe, reliable, and won't break the bank is the issue.

David Bird

I don't have a brand recommendation to give you, but having worked in the disk drive business back in the 90s, I can tell you that the biggest nemesis of a disk drive is heat. The faster a disk spins, the hotter it will get.

For 7,200 and 10k RPM drives, you probably want an enclosure with a fan unless you can find a case designed like the WD My Book drives. With those the excess heat simply rises out of the top of the case. I've not seen any cases that work that way though. (But I haven't looked at cases lately.

The other thing to consider is get the one with the beefiest power supply. A spike sneaking through to the drive can turn it into a doorstop just like that.