buy SATA enclosure or return drive for ATA?

I recently purchased a 320GB Seagate Barracuda drive (ST3320620AS). The issue is that my case is an ATA case.. the drive that I needed is the same code minus the S at the end.. ugh! What happened was that I saw free shipping and didn't notice the SATA part so I swapped the item in my shopping cart.

So, my situation is this... do I now contact newegg pay for the 15% restocking fee, shipping fee, shipping fee on the new item (which the sale of it ends today) OR buy an SATA enclosure with firewire 400.. the only enclosure that I have seen that I like is the from OWC, Mercury Elite, and it goes for $109.99 which pushes me a bit out of my range.

The other issue is this... if I do return the drive, obtaining the ATA version, the drive is going into a LaCie D2 case and there is still the issue of the drive not being able to view the 320GB.

What would you do? I do know that keeping the SATA means better throughput and I also know that going with the OWC enclosure means a better chip set then what any of my external LaCie drives have.

Thanks!

cube said:

I'd go for the same as you have in your computer, to be able to swap drives.

Click to expand...

I have an iMac so I am not about to go and swap out the internal drive.. although I know I could if needed. My internal drive is running fine, only a couple of years old. This new drive was to be a replacement for the external unit, the LaCie that died on me was a ATA... currently based on the price difference I think I might swallow the shipping and restocking fee and just see if newegg can swap it for me... their site suggest that I will have to ship it back and just buy the other one.