Ext HD vs Int HD & Ext Storage

[Vigilance]

From reading through the forums here, it sounds like more people find putting an internal hard drive into an external enclosure to be more reliable than buying an external hard drive. Is this a fair statement?

I'm thinking of buying a Samsung F3 1TB hard drive and a Rosewill RX-358-S enclosure to use together. Should this be a good combination?

Any info is appreciated.

 

[Edrick]

I personally like buying a good internal HDD and putting it into an enclosure myself. It does not cost much more (if at all) and I can upgrade whenever I want. Plus I know I am getting a good drive. It is my opinion that HDD companies will sell their best drives as "internal". My thinking behind this is that the assume that external HDDs will not see as much constant use as internal ones (no one runs games off external HDDs). I could be completely wrong, but it makes me happy putting my own together.

 

[corkyg]

My belief is that one has more control and flexibility installing a HDD into an external case. I have both - but I know for sure the quality of the drive I installed. My sense is that canned externals would use the cheapest solution that meets the market need in order to maximize profit.

Plus, you have the flexibility of being able to change HDDs any time. It's a good way to use HDDs that have been replaced internally by bigger or faster ones.

 

[jvroig]

Plus, you have the flexibility of being able to change HDDs any time. It's a good way to use HDDs that have been replaced internally by bigger or faster ones.

This is really what it is for me. When a harddisk has served close to 2 years as an internal harddisk, it's also about the time I upgrade (software and hardware), so I get a new harddisk to serve as main, and the old one gets to be an external backup drive. That way my main (internal) harddisk never gets too old on me, while the older ones get to live out the rest of their lives in relative ease (far lesser usage) as an external backup drive.

 

[FishAk]

If you open a canned enclosure, you loose the warranty, but if you supply your own enclosure,, toaster, or case you can put the drive wherever/however you want, and still retain the warranty.

 

[RebateMonger]

Name-brand external disks gained a bad reputation a few years ago. There were lots of power supply failures, USB-to-IDE converter board failures, and, probably, lots of overheated disks.

I think that factory external drives are better quality now. But I still prefer an external housing with a fan. Preferably a large-diameter one. Also, it's quite possible there will be a tamper seal on a factory external drive, meaning that a failing disk means invalidating your warranty if you disassemble the drive to attempt your own data recovery.

 

[Rezident]

Yes, I've had yet another external drive fail me recently (Seagate) after a WD drive failed previously. I have never has as many internal drives fail (my old Maxtor must be nearly ten years old and still worked last time I tried.) I am definitely very suspicious of external hard drives.

Is it easy enough to put an internal in your own enclosure? I've never tried that before.

 

[jvroig]

Is it easy enough to put an internal in your own enclosure? I've never tried that before.

Very easy. Not much to do but slide the drive in, then it should come with some sort of locking mechanism (most I've seen have screws, some don't but have plastic thingamajigs instead) so that the drive is fastened steadily inside the enclosure, then the "cap" of the enclosure connects to the drive. That's about it.

 

[Vigilance]

And the enclosures come with whatever is required to convert the internal interface (i.e. SATA) to the external interface (i.e. USB/eSATA), right?

Is it generally recommended to use drives like WD Green and Samsung EcoGreen to drives like WD Black and Samsung F3 for external storage due to heat, power, and noise? Or is the difference too small compared to the drop in speed to justify getting one of the green drives?

 

[jvroig]

And the enclosures come with whatever is required to convert the internal interface (i.e. SATA) to the external interface (i.e. USB/eSATA), right?

Yep, it's all there.

Is it generally recommended to use drives like WD Green and Samsung EcoGreen to drives like WD Black and Samsung F3 for external storage due to heat, power, and noise? Or is the difference too small compared to the drop in speed to justify getting one of the green drives?

I don't know about the temps, but these external drives (presumably for backup) will only get used very rarely (or, at least, not as often as your internal harddisk), so it actually makes sense to just buy a cheap Green / Eco drive, or even the WD Blue. The lower temps are just a bonus, in my opinion. It just doesn't make much sense for me to spend the extra money for fast drive inside an enclosure when I rarely use it

Of course if you do care about the speed or you already have the drive (for example, my main drives end up in an enclosure after serving for two years, so I'm not really buying a new, fast harddisk), I have not heard about Blacks, Barracudas or Spinpoints causing a problem in an enclosure. I've had both a Barracuda and a Black in an enclosure, no problems encountered. As for power, the enclosures require being plugged into an electrical socket anyway, so whichever way you go (cheap/slow/low-power or expensive/fast) makes no difference.