SSD Enclosure vs External HD

[Melankolic]

Apologies if this is a commonly asked question...

I need a quick, portable, external storage method (without breaking the bank);

I'm considering the 'Iomega 500GB/1TB eGo Mac II Portable Hard Drive' http://store.apple.com/uk/product/H7766ZM/A/iomega-1tb-ego-mac-ii-portable-hard-drive
7200 drive connected via Firewire 800.

However, would an hard drive enclosure, with an SSD inside, connected via Firewire 800 be faster? I'd assume so, however i know very little about 'Sata' connections and weather they would throttle the transfer speed at all. Also, for speed, should I be looking at Sata III? or is eSata faster.

Sorry for my complete ignorance in these matters.

Finally, with regards to enclosures, if anyone could link and recommended any devices it would be much appreciated (along with any thunderbolt enclosures, available in the UK, that have passed me by).

Thanks for reading, thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

If Firewire 800 is the fastest port besides the Gigabit Ethernet port on your Mac, then that HDD you linked to will suffice.
FW800 offers read/write speeds between 65 to 75 MB/s.
2.5" S-ATA HDDs with 7,200 RPM offer up to 100 MB/s.
SSDs offer from 150 to 600 MB/s.
S-ATA 1.5 Gbps (S-ATA I) offers up to 150 MB/s, S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) double of that, and S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) double of S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II).

Anyway, that 7,200 RPM HDD connected via Firewire 800 won't be faster than an SSD in a FW800 enclosure when transferring large amounts of data.
An SSD though is faster with accessing files, as its seek times are lower. Thus an SSD connected via FW800 can be used as boot drive and give you better reaction times than an internal HDD.