Need advice on Macbook HD and ext. enclosure

[stuuke]

I have a black Macbook with an 80gb drive that I would like to upgrade. I've seen favorable discussion on basically all of the brands. I would like something at least 160gb. What drives would you recommend? Seagate 160 and the Toshiba 400gb seem to get a lot of discussion. I noticed that Western Digital appear to be the cheapest. Is there any downside to them? I would also like a USB 2.0 enclosure for my current drive. OWC has some but are there any others that you would recommend? Thanks.

 

[excalibur313]

I'm trying to find an enclosure too. I've heard what you really want is a usb+esata drive because usb is really slow. The esata gives you the option of getting a card later to significantly increase performance. Unfortunately, I can't find many good ones. There are a few on newegg, but they require 2 usb ports to power a 2.5" drive. This one seemed pretty good and can take drives that are 250 gb. The only downside is that it doesn't come with a power adaptor and instead can use 2 usb ports if the drive sucks too much power.

 

[panzer06]

I'm trying to find an enclosure too. I've heard what you really want is a usb+esata drive because usb is really slow. The esata gives you the option of getting a card later to significantly increase performance. Unfortunately, I can't find many good ones. There are a few on newegg, but they require 2 usb ports to power a 2.5" drive. This one seemed pretty good and can take drives that are 250 gb. The only downside is that it doesn't come with a power adaptor and instead can use 2 usb ports if the drive sucks too much power.

I have (2) of the Vantec NexStar*3 enclosures and they both work great. I have never needed external power on my CD Macbook and regularly boot from the external drive.

I would get one of the new Hitachi 200GB 7200 or 250GB 5400 drives, I've had great luck with the 160GB 5400 Hitachi drives (I have 2). Sometimes zipzoomfly.com is less expensive and have no shipping or tax on most items.

Cheers,

 

[excalibur313]

Thanks a lot for the help!

 

[desenso]

I've tried a number of custom enclosures and they're fine, but I prefer my Seagate. It seems to spin down my hard drive much more efficiently than any of my custom built drives.

I have one of These and it's great! Makes me a little nervous to have a drive that large, and therefore that much data subject to failure, which is why I have two of them to keep a backup...

 

[excalibur313]

Just out of curiosity, can drives hooked up with esata be hot swapped? I heard it depends on the hardware setup but I was thinking this external case because there is a deal when you buy a 250gb 2.5" wd drive.