I'd like to get a 2.5" external enclosure, mainly for backup use.
As far as the enclosure goes, I've settled on the Akasa ENP2NES, due to its tremendous versatility.
Now I need recommendations for the actual HDD. It should be a SATA drive within 250-320 GB range.
I have no indication of the enclosure's silencing abilities, I just assume they're not that great, being basically just an aluminum box. So the drive should be as quiet as possible, while still retaining enough performance would be nice in order to actually use that eSata connection.
I haven't been in the market for 2.5" drives before, so any clue helps. Especially if you use them in enclosures yourselves. Thanks.
2.5" SATA drive for external enclosure use
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
I can recommend WD5000BEVT for use in an external enclosure. This drive has a very low spinup power requirement (2.62 W) compared to 4.20 W for the 320 GB model WD3200BEVT. I have both of these drives and I have put the 500 GB drive in the external enclosure instead of the 320 GB as I originally planned to do because of the lower power consumption of the 500 GB drive.
To further reduce power requirements I have enabled the Reduced Power Spinup. See following links for more info:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... faqid=2670
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/portable/2579-001116.pdf
The external enclosure I use is Mapower MAP-AL21CSJ. I have tried a lot of enclosures and this is the best one I have found so far. It keeps the drive properly in place without any wiggling and the drive is screwed onto the circuit board which eliminates the risk of bad contact. The enclosure is power by USB, even when used with the eSATA connection. The USB connection gets disabled automatically when connected by eSATA. There is a 5V AC adapter connection but it uses nonstandard polarity so it is hard to an AC adapter for it.
Edit: Forgot to add the link to power consumption figures:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/2- ... n,684.html
Cirkus
To further reduce power requirements I have enabled the Reduced Power Spinup. See following links for more info:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... faqid=2670
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/portable/2579-001116.pdf
The external enclosure I use is Mapower MAP-AL21CSJ. I have tried a lot of enclosures and this is the best one I have found so far. It keeps the drive properly in place without any wiggling and the drive is screwed onto the circuit board which eliminates the risk of bad contact. The enclosure is power by USB, even when used with the eSATA connection. The USB connection gets disabled automatically when connected by eSATA. There is a 5V AC adapter connection but it uses nonstandard polarity so it is hard to an AC adapter for it.
Edit: Forgot to add the link to power consumption figures:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/2- ... n,684.html
Cirkus
Re: 2.5" SATA drive for external enclosure use
I've been using two Hitachi 5K250 250GB for 1 year without any problem.darkbulb wrote:
Now I need recommendations for the actual HDD. It should be a SATA drive within 250-320 GB range.
These are really quiet and energy efficient drives.