Re: Good, but cheap 1TB external hard drive?

**Damonte** · 09-14-2009, 04:49 PM

Pfft. You can use any drive you want with this setup. And it's easily upgradable!

Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812232002

K-Mart: Cooling for you and your drive!

**Twisted_Firestarter** · 09-17-2009, 12:34 PM

I wanted to throw this out there in case anyone is searching for a 2.5" external hard-drive enclosure:

I've been using OWC 2.5" enclosures for quite a while. They aren't very well known in the PC world for some reason, but they make a great product. You can get the enclosure as USB 2.0 only or a combo of USB & Firewire 400 or 800. They use a custom Oxford FireWire 800 & USB 2.0 chipset which is consistently the fastest in benchmarks.

**Twisted_Firestarter** · 09-17-2009, 01:10 PM

I did a bit of research for 3.5" enclosures and see lots of people recommending the Thermaltake External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station. One cool thing about this product is that you can use either 3.5" or 2.5" SATA drives in it. I just nabbed on of these and a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB drive for $128.39. If you don't live in CA or GA it will be $11.41 less (no tax).

The Thermaltake fits my requirements really well---I want to be able to do backups to store offsite. So, being able to easily pop a drive in and out is great. An eSata enclosure would probably be better if you are interested in using it as a secondary hard drive rather than a backup drive, however. As this ExtremeTech benchmark comparison shows USB is great for file copies, but eSata clearly wins in HD benchmarks.

**ScratchMonkey** · 09-18-2009, 07:12 PM

At ThinkGeek:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/a7ea/

[media]http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/front/a7ea_sata_dual_drive-dock.jpg[/media]

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