i'm looking to get a hard drive enclosure for one of my desktop hard drives. i'm just looking for one that will support your basic IDE hard drive and i believe my hard drive is a 200 gb seagate. I've seen several brands, many 've never heard of before and some are made of aluminum, plastic, some have fans, some don't. So what is the best kind to get?

do i get an aluminum one cuz it dissipates better?

am i going to need a fan?

thanks

 

You are probably not going to need a fan. All of the enclosures I've seen are aluminum and do not require a fan. And from what I have read, aluminum does dissipate heat better. I've had a enclose from CP Technologies that worked great, the only reason I had to get another one was because the solder that connected the power plug to the circuit board came loose and when I was trying to fix it, I ended up breaking the other one off. So I got another one from Ebay not the same brand, but works just as fine. The only difference between the two is that the CP Technologies one didn't require any jumper setting prior to connecting the drive, but the one I got off of Ebay requires the jumper to be set to Master.

The CP Technologies one was about $30 + tax, and the one from Ebay was around $20, ($7.50 + $12 shipping) The only thing about enclosures is that the connector that connects to the hard drive's power supply is easily broken if not careful.

 

try www.newegg.com. If you really don't know what are you doing, just get one with many good reviews. My friend has a ANZO brand one. Seems to be pretty good and no problems.

 

Get a Vantec Nexstar 3

 

^ Werd.

I installed a 160gb WD drive in a Nexstar NST-350U enclosure a few years ago and have had zero problems.

Click this for listing of Vantec Enclosures on Newegg.com

CanopyFlyer

 

i'm using an aluminum enclosure for my 120gb hd. haven't had any problems...but don't remember the brand name.