What's new in external enclosures?

[Aztech]

What should I look for? I want a good quality enclosure that does at least USB2 and Firewire. Are there any that do Firewire II yet? How about external SATA? How quick will these newest interfaces get into computers?

Thanks for chattin'.

 

[corkyg]

Yes to all questions. Here is a 1394B:

1394B

I have has a SATA external for seome time - works well - but my mobo isn't too cool withit because it links SATA and RAID, and thus, I can't make the External SATA removable, therefore it incurs many Delayed Write errors. If your mobo can support SATA w/o RAID involvement, it would be great - then you could turn off write caching.

SATA II

 

[Aztech]

Thanks, so they're available, but the prices are still way up there.

 

[Lalakai]

consider buying just the external enclosure, then adding hd of your choice. a few more options that way, with decent pricing. if you're really looking for portable units, consider using lap top drive in small enclosure

 

[ElFenix]

are there any usb enclosures that can turn themselves off when the drive has been idle for a while? or is that a firewire only thing?