Hard drive enclosures

[AtmaWeapon]

Alas, my 40GB is being taxed to its limit. Even after my massive deletion campaign a few months ago, I only have 4 or 5 gigs left. That's a lot of space, but I don't like being that close to capacity. I'm soon going to image for backup and reformat my laptop HD, but I need somewhere to store the image. I want to buy an external enclosure for a HD, but I'm not sure what to do.

Every item I see reeks of third world cheapness, but most of them have good reviews. I like the cut of this boy's (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-743&catalog=92&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=0) jib, but something tells me to stay away from an unknown company. An alternative is this (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-146-017&catalog=92&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=0&section=3). More expensive, the box is still cheap looking, but the brand is one I know better.

Does anyone else have experience with enclosures? The more expensive one says it will accomodate CD/DVD burners, which would be a definite plus. But the other one just looks cool to me. Can anyone help?

Also, how do I tell if I have USB 2.0 or just USB 1.0 or 1.1? If I don't have 2.0, I think I'd rather have a Firewire enclosure, but I have no idea how to test my laptop for 2.0. Any suggestions?

[slothman]

You mean you have over 30 gig of stuff. I have only 2 or so. Do you have dozens of movies or thousands of songs?
I don't know about enclosures but I've seen "removable" hard drives. You put it in and take it out like a floppy. Maybe that would work. Then I think you could easily replace it with any size.

[AtmaWeapon]

Yes. Quake III + many mods is eating a lot of HD space, the legal XP ISO I was able to download through my University eats a lot of space, I have 5+ gigs of MP3s, and various other stuff. The problem is, I've accumulated so much stuff I'm not really sure what all of it is taking up. I have so much crap that I can't delete anything. A solid gig or more is data files that I must back up before a format. I think part of the problem may be accumulated garbage from many, many programs I've installed and uninstalled. I'm not one to go on a frenzy in my Windows folder, though.

I think we're talking about the same thing with your "Removable" hard drive, unless you're talking about a SCSI array. MAN, would I ever kill for a good SCSI array... I use one at work, and Visual Studio .NET performs on a PII 450 with 192MB of RAM only slightly slower than on my P4 1.6Ghz 512MB RAM laptop. I have a 3-drive SCSI set up on a Compaq Proliant server... if only we had another PPU module I could dual-processor...

Anyway, I have another question. I would like to generate a list of every folder on my hard drive, preferably in some logical order. The reason for this is I want to go through every folder and keep track of which folders have vital data in them. I can envision the recursive loop necessary and could probably write it myself, but I'm lazy. Anyone know of such a thing?

[slothman]

Yes I do know of such a thing. It's called "spacemonger" at http://www.werkema.com/software/spacemonger.html. I use it all the time when I run out. Also you can do a search for "*" That will take a long time but will show everything. If you only want folders then do it with "*." That won't accurately do folders but will do most and few non-folders.

[Flash Man]

The CoolMax is definately a great enclosure. My boss had one and he put a DVD+-RW in it. Only problem out of the three he ordered was the fact that one of them was broken. NewEgg promptly replaced it. It worked great for the DVD+-RW, although for a Hard Drive I do not know. Since they both run off of IDE I would say that it should work fine. I plan on getting one eventually to slap people's hard drives in when I need to back up their stuff. CoolMax puts out a USB 2.0/FireWire model for $20.00 more.

To find out if your laptop has USB 2.0 you could call up your manufacturer or look on their web site to find out. You should also be able to run something like CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) and find the chipset and you should be able to determine if you have USB 2.0 based on that as well. Finally you could post your laptop model number here and the chipset and I am sure I could determine whether or not you have USB 2.0.

[AtmaWeapon]

I use space monger. It's great, but not useful to me for what I want to do. The folders most important to me are chock full of little < 1kb log files and emails, and that does not show up among the near-gig that other folders take up.

OK, Flash Man. Here's what I could dig up about my motherboard in CPU-Z:
I have a Dell Inspiron 8200
Chipset: Intel i845D Rev. 4

Any help, plus how you found out would be great.
Southbridge: Intel 82801CAM (ICH3-M)

[DarkDragoonX]

Question: How the hell can anyone accumulate so many mp3's!? How are you able to listen to that much music? It boggles the mind.

[Flash Man]

I looked around on google and I do not believe your laptop has USB 2.0. All the places I looked said it has two USB 1.1 and one FireWire. I would go either with a FireWire enclosure or go with a USB 2.0 and buy a USB 2.0 PC Card. They might even out to the same price so the choice is yours.

[AtmaWeapon]

I looked around on google and I do not believe your laptop has USB 2.0. All the places I looked said it has two USB 1.1 and one FireWire. I would go either with a FireWire enclosure or go with a USB 2.0 and buy a USB 2.0 PC Card. They might even out to the same price so the choice is yours.

:cry:



Question: How the hell can anyone accumulate so many mp3's!? How are you able to listen to that much music? It boggles the mind.

I rip every CD I buy. I'm actually a little behind, as I have a crappy drive and if there is the TINIEST problem with the CD, it can take hours to rip one disc. I have a couple movies on my hard drive (Ju-on is ominously begging me to watch it again since I'm not terrified enough right now). I have two sleep-therapy files that need to stay in .wav format because they rely on something like 3Hz difference between left and right channel, so lossy compression is a bad idea, that's almost a gig there. I'll post SpaceMonger screenshots tomorrow.

All I can say is:
Files total: 117,291
Folders total: 13,760

This is not counting my mp3s. Oh, and I lied, my mp3s are 3.9GB in size, not 5 gigs. But I am in the process of redoing them in 192 aps, so that's going to make them all bigger. They could live happily on another hard drive.

[Manny]

Down here I'm close to paraguay. like 50 min from the border
you can find harddrives of any brand any type, for as low as 100$ US. hell i got a 140 GB drive for a good 140$ US of Samsung brand last i was there. gotta love paraguay, the black market of the world

[Flash Man]

Down here I'm close to paraguay. like 50 min from the border
you can find harddrives of any brand any type, for as low as 100$ US. hell i got a 140 GB drive for a good 140$ US of Samsung brand last i was there. gotta love paraguay, the black market of the world
For your knowledge no one makes a 140GB hard drive. The closest size is a 147GB hard drive which is a SCSI based drive made by Maxtor, Seagate and Hitachi. $140 for those particular drives would be quite a bargain but most users do not use SCSI, most use IDE or SATA. There are two drives near 140GB would be 120GB and 160GB. You can acquire a 120GB Western Digital 8MB Cache Hard Drive for $90 and a Samsung 120GB 2MB Cache Hard Drive for $87.

Western Digital makes the highest quality IDE and SATA hard drives on the market right now. Samsung makes the worst. Every customer I have had that had a bad hard drive either had a Samsung or a Maxtor. I have had one bad Western Digital ( because the customer dropped it ) and several bad Seagates. I would never put a Samsung drive in my system, nor use any Samsung peripherals aside from their Televisions and LCD Panels.

[Manny]

For your knowledge no one makes a 140GB hard drive. The closest size is a 147GB hard drive which is a SCSI based drive made by Maxtor, Seagate and Hitachi. $140 for those particular drives would be quite a bargain but most users do not use SCSI, most use IDE or SATA. There are two drives near 140GB would be 120GB and 160GB. You can acquire a 120GB Western Digital 8MB Cache Hard Drive for $90 and a Samsung 120GB 2MB Cache Hard Drive for $87.

Western Digital makes the highest quality IDE and SATA hard drives on the market right now. Samsung makes the worst. Every customer I have had that had a bad hard drive either had a Samsung or a Maxtor. I have had one bad Western Digital ( because the customer dropped it ) and several bad Seagates. I would never put a Samsung drive in my system, nor use any Samsung peripherals aside from their Televisions and LCD Panels.

Well sorry for being technically illeterate. i know it was over 100 but i couldn't exactly remember how much. its hot and i'm tired so i'll stop now ugh

[Eckels]

Question: How the hell can anyone accumulate so many mp3's!? How are you able to listen to that much music? It boggles the mind.

http://eckels.afterblur.com/playlist.html

Currently 7.26 gb

(which is odd, since 7/26 is my b-day)

Anyways, it's very easy. My CD collection is close to 900 strong as well.

[AtmaWeapon]

OK guys, help me out.

USB PC card (http://www.outpost.com/product/3851207/) Low price, respectable vendor, but I'm not sure about the manufacturer of this card.

DVD burner (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=27-152-012&depa=0) for pretty cheap. I have a feeling this is a special deal, and may disappear soon. I've thought about it, and I have a 30GB Maxtor I could use for permanent storage, it's just at my house in MS and I'm not going there for another month or so. A DVD can hold a sizable chunk of information, and I'm seeing posts from people elsewhere that claim they can get up to 4-6x writing DVDs through a PCMCIA card, except for one poor joker who was burning from an HD on the PCMCIA card to a burner on the same card. It'd be nice to have a DVD burner, but a hard drive seems to fit my needs more than a DVD burner.

I want this enclosure. (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-146-017&depa=1) Now, for $20 more, I can get the same thing with a cooling fan installed. How vital would this fan be, given that I may eventually mount a DVD burner inside the enclosure?


On the other hand, I was discussing my situation with a hardware guru at work today, and he told me that if I go in to Circuit City as soon as they open Sunday mornings, he could almost guarantee I could get a Hewlett-Packard P4 machine for sub $1000. He snagged a 2.8Ghz with a DVD burner for $700. I don't have the money for this, but even with ridiculous interest I could finance this for pretty cheap monthly. It'd be nice to have a bigger desktop, and I'd probably gut the parts and place them in my monstrous fileserver case I bought a while back.

What do you think?

[gdorf]

http://eckels.afterblur.com/playlist.html

Currently 7.26 gb

(which is odd, since 7/26 is my b-day)

Anyways, it's very easy. My CD collection is close to 900 strong as well.

http://home.comcast.net/~ravix475/playlist.html

songs: 4000+
space on hard-drive: 12.8 gigs

I'd say about half of them are from cd's I own...

[Eckels]

Cheaper USB card: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-102-010&depa=3

your enclosure and drive total 137.99 (not including usb card)

for 7 bucks less you can get an 80gig usb hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-330&depa=1

or for 12 bucks more you can get a 120gig usb hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-154-317&depa=1

Personally, That's the route i'd go. but if you're set on a dvd burner, then i'm not gonna change your mind any.

Plus - What are the specs on the laptop. is it worth pouring more money into?

[Flash Man]

OK guys, help me out.

USB PC card (http://www.outpost.com/product/3851207/) Low price, respectable vendor, but I'm not sure about the manufacturer of this card.

DVD burner (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=27-152-012&depa=0) for pretty cheap. I have a feeling this is a special deal, and may disappear soon. I've thought about it, and I have a 30GB Maxtor I could use for permanent storage, it's just at my house in MS and I'm not going there for another month or so. A DVD can hold a sizable chunk of information, and I'm seeing posts from people elsewhere that claim they can get up to 4-6x writing DVDs through a PCMCIA card, except for one poor joker who was burning from an HD on the PCMCIA card to a burner on the same card. It'd be nice to have a DVD burner, but a hard drive seems to fit my needs more than a DVD burner.

I want this enclosure. (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-146-017&depa=1) Now, for $20 more, I can get the same thing with a cooling fan installed. How vital would this fan be, given that I may eventually mount a DVD burner inside the enclosure?

The USB 2.0 Card sounds like a pretty good deal. The NEC DVD+-RW drive is almost the same one my boss had. It is a slightly upgraded version, he had the 1300a which did 4x2.4x2x. It worked great, although later on he sold it and got a PlexWriter. The USB Enclosure I do not believe would require a fan, although to lengthen the life of most hard drives cooling them is an excellent technique. My boss had the one with the fan, and his DVD+-RW never got warm so I do not think that it is necessary.



On the other hand, I was discussing my situation with a hardware guru at work today, and he told me that if I go in to Circuit City as soon as they open Sunday mornings, he could almost guarantee I could get a Hewlett-Packard P4 machine for sub $1000. He snagged a 2.8Ghz with a DVD burner for $700. I don't have the money for this, but even with ridiculous interest I could finance this for pretty cheap monthly. It'd be nice to have a bigger desktop, and I'd probably gut the parts and place them in my monstrous fileserver case I bought a while back.

What do you think?

I think you could build your own system.

NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com/)

ASUS P4P8X - $79.99
Intel Pentium 4 2.8CGHz - $181.00
{ Intel Pentium 4 2.4BGHz - $133.00 }

-OR-

ASUS A7N8X-E - $75.00
Athlon XP 2800+ - $121.00
{ Athlon XP 2500+ - $80.00 }

Corsair 256MB DDR400 - $44.00 x 2 for Dual Channel

Western Digital 120GB 8MB Cache - $90.00
{ Western Digital 80GB 8MB Cache - $68.00 }

NEC ND-2500A - $95.00

ATi Radeon 9600XT 128MB - $178.00
{ Sapphire ATi Radeon 9200 128MB - $64.00 }

Intel Total - $711.99
AMD Total - $603.00

Case - $50.00-$100.00

Linux - Free
Windows 2000 Professional - $136.00
Windows XP Home Edition - $94.00
Windows XP Professional Edition - $137.00
Pirated - Your Limits

Both are quality parts. I would personally go for the AMD simply because its cheaper. All the parts can be changed to lower or higher. I personally think that if you put your own system together you could fully customize it to your liking. Not only that if you feel the need for more power you can easily increase the speed of your system by the push of a button. Again its all up to you. If you go down to Circuit City and try the computer out and love it go for it. I think that both computers would be quite pleasing. I do not know why but I feel that if I were to buy a premanufactured computer I would be limiting myself in some way. I hope this post someho whelps you in your journey towards new toys.