pOnCh650 Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 I read that a lot of you guys like the value of buying firewire enclosures and assembling your own external HD's. Do you ever experience heat issues? How are they different than buying the assembled ones with the power cord and fan built in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplets Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 Depends on the enclosure design. I bought an enclosure and a HD separately and put it together. I think I saved 5 bucks only against the thing already assembled. I bought both from OWC at www.macsales.com. From now on I'll just buy the external HD from them. A couple of bucks is not worth the hassle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 I save much more than just a couple of bucks building my own drives. I choose fanless aluminum enclosures that don't have any heat issues, and are totally silent (it's just a box with a chipset in it). I can swap my own drives, put them inside a machine, in an external box, etc. The reasons I like to build my own HDs are: 1) Reliability: in my experience the drives I build myself are more reliable than Glyph drives, LaCie drives, etc.. 2) Flexibility: I can swap the drives how I want, choose the exact drive model I want, etc.. 3) Price: I can build a drive for much less than a Glyph, or even a LaCie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pOnCh650 Posted July 4, 2008 Author Share Posted July 4, 2008 Can you recommend any brands and models for enclosures and HD's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kent Sandvik Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 Can you recommend any brands and models for enclosures and HD's? Can't go wrong with Seagate Barracudas... Quiet and fast. Reliable, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prjkt Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 I like the cooler master enclosures - one side is an open grill, the other side has a heat-transfer pad to conduct heat from the top of the HDD to the Al enclosure to keep the heat down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 Seagate Barracudas are a great choice. But I don't mind Hitachi, or Western Digital. As for the enclosures, I don't even worry about brand, I just look at the way it's built. I like fanless enclosures, where the case is the heat sink that dissipates the hard drive's heat. That means your external hard drive should have some air flow around it, so don't stack them up - or they'll die (but so do some fan-equipped enclosures anyway). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplets Posted July 5, 2008 Share Posted July 5, 2008 Check out OWC at www.macsales.com. Great drives for great prices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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