2.5" USB External Hard Drive - Which Enclosure (power supply question)

[ungraphic]

I'm looking at buying a 500gb external hard drive, and the actual drive itself can only be Western Digital (I won't touch any others, not even Seagate).

I can get a 500gb Western Digital Passport for $119.99 CAD in black with the enclosure of course: click here

My other option is to buy the drive separately, the Western Digital Scorpio 500gb for $99.99 CAD: click here and a cool case of my liking off eBay for about $13 CAD: click here

Now, my question is this; does it matter which case I use in order to make sure the drive is able to be powered with only 1 USB port? I've heard some notebooks dont give enough juice to certain usb ports and would require a y-splitter to use two usb cables in order to power it (im guessing netbooks would probably suffer from this). I remember trying to use a 2.5" lacie external with the orange rubber padding around it, connected it to the front port of a Powermac G5 1.8ghz and it wouldnt mount, unless it was connected to one of the usb ports on the back of the machine.

My main interest is to get a cool looking case, the price is slightly less for the customized option, although I don't mind the design of the WD Passport.

Thanks!!!

 

[GoCubsGo]

Those el cheapo ebay drive enclosures work very well with one USB port. I own 3 enclosures all under $7.00 shipped. I would buy the internal and an external enclosure if you can get it for cheap.

Note: I've used the drive + enclosure using one USB plug on a MB Air, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro. They all worked very well.

 

[ungraphic]

Those el cheapo ebay drive enclosures work very well with one USB port. I own 3 enclosures all under $7.00 shipped. I would buy the internal and an external enclosure if you can get it for cheap.

Note: I've used the drive + enclosure using one USB plug on a MB Air, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro. They all worked very well.

Thanks for the input! I really like the lime green colour of the case on ebay, and the fact that it costs very little. I don't mind the WD Passport, the only other thing holding me back (somewhat) is durability of the case, though it's not like I throw around my hard drives and have them get beat up.

 

[GoCubsGo]

It's just a piece of metal really. Nothing spectacular and may not hold up any more than the passport. I own them both actually.

 

[FieryFurnace]

I have one of those cheap enclosures too and they work with only one USB connected on my white MacBook.
But I wouldn't put all my trust on that. Some machines need both USB cables to be connected (that all depends on what else is sucking juice from the USB host and how much it can deliver too).

Why don't you buy one with firewire?
I never had a power issue with a firewire HDD.

 

[ungraphic]

It's just a piece of metal really. Nothing spectacular and may not hold up any more than the passport. I own them both actually.

You mean you have the same case as the green one from ebay?

 

[ungraphic]

I have one of those cheap enclosures too and they work with only one USB connected on my white MacBook.
But I wouldn't put all my trust on that. Some machines need both USB cables to be connected (that all depends on what else is sucking juice from the USB host and how much it can deliver too).

Why don't you buy one with firewire?
I never had a power issue with a firewire HDD.

I'd rather go with e-sata over firewire. Either way, neither of the two connections are really going to give any kind of speed increase; its a 2.5" 5400rpm drive, USB 2.0 is fine, and its a lot more practical, since the external will be used with machines that aren't macs (and firewire isn't all too popular on the PC side, especially with people who only do general tasks on computers).

 

[FieryFurnace]

I'd rather go with e-sata over firewire. Either way, neither of the two connections are really going to give any kind of speed increase; its a 2.5" 5400rpm drive, USB 2.0 is fine, and its a lot more practical, since the external will be used with machines that aren't macs (and firewire isn't all too popular on the PC side, especially with people who only do general tasks on computers).

I have a Iomega Ego 500GB (also 5400rpm) and with firewire I get a nice stable 65MB/s - when I connect the Ego with USB2, I only get around 30MB/s.

The connectors choice (fw400, fw800, USB2) was a reason for me to get the Ego. Would be nice if it had eSATA too.