It's just so easy to fit a standard ATA drive in one of these enclosures, most designs take less than two minutes to install a drive (simple slide apart, push in the drive, use 4 retaining screws to hold in place, slide back together)
Things to look out for* USB2 external hard drive enclosure
1) If you want reasonable performance then it must be connected via USB2 (not USB1.1) this gives a very reasonable 60megabytes/sec max throughput.
USB1 on the other hand is patheticly slow (40X slower)
2) metal housings are better because they act as a natural heatsink for the drive also housings with a build in fan offer better cooling
3) external power adapters aren't as neat as housings that have built in power units but it does make them slightly bigger.
4) when choosing a hard drive go for a 7,200 spin speed unit but look at one that is known to run cooler in it's class.
This is only what I have heard but some USB controllers are supposed to be more compatible (the actual chip built into the unit) personally I've used several diferant makes of housing and have never looked at the controller chip on any of them but all have performed admirably.
Martin
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