K perfect. Think that's what I'm gonna do.

Do all external cases need a power supply plugged in. Or can USB or IEEE1394 power it?

^ most only need one USB wire for data and power.

for eSata...i have usb power to supplement it.

it's best you take out one of your HDD...cause you really dont need 5 after you one of them is a 1TB :)

Where did you read that Seagate was crap? I love my Seagate and actually ahd a bad experience with WD

Well I read about it on NCIX. Then googled it, and found that it's a common problem in the exisiting 1TB and 1.5TB model Baracuda series. I'm not too tech savvy so I don't want to have to swap HDD all the time and/or upgrade firmware constantly.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931

Apparently the Caviar Black series from WD is one of the most reliable 1TB HDD's out there, and for $20 more I'd rather skip the possible frustrations down the road. I've never had any issues with any hard drives ever before. Currently have a Samsung, WD and a Seagate. But all of them are <750GB.


So this with this Vantec enclosure I won't have to plug it in to a 120V wall outlet? Usb 2.0 can power the HDD+enclsoure? I just saw the pic with the wall plug and thought "oh great another plug". I have too much shit by my comp and don't want to go and buy a 3rd surge protector cuz the existing two are full lol. Too much clutter already.


Sorry for all the questions guys. Just like to be thorough and actually try and learn how to do this properly. :) :haha:

Are you sure about that?

Most of the USB powered enclosures i've seen are only for 2.5" drives (laptop drives).
Laptop drives are dog slow, and expensive compared to the 3.5" drives.

3.5" drives require 12V, and I'm pretty sure a USB port cannot provide that kind of power....maybe 5V max?

Either way, I have yet to come across a USB powered 3.5" drive enclosure.

Caviar Black series are also a pretty damn fast :)
As for that Vantec enclosure being USB powered...see my post just above this one.
Short answer: I don't think its USB powered.

and here's a link on the problem Seagate drives are having:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01...ailure_plague/

And to make matters worse, the firmware fix they released crippled the drives of users trying to be proactive by flashing this "new firmware" to prevent the failure from happening.

Doh. I wonder if an enclosure with IEEE aka Firewire could do so. IEEE can do 12V

All 3.5" hard drives will require a wall outlet/AC power pack because of their power requirements. I have a 3.5" Acomdata enclosure that has both USB and firewire and both connection methods require that I plug in the AC adapter.

The 2.5" ones will depend on which ones you get. I have a Seagate Free Agent Pro drive and it only requires one USB plug. I also have a Vantec CX and that requires 2. I think it really depends on what drive they throw in there. USB specs say that it can only spit out 5V at 500mA. If you drive's peak power requirements call for more than 500mA then you're going to end up not having enough juice to power the drive.

As for speed requirements, the bottleneck will be the USB bus. Even though it claims 480mb/s, it gets nowhere near that due to other devices on the USB bus using the bandwidth. Even the slowest of hard drives should be able to keep up with the maximum USB bus speed.

isnt it bad to leave a external harddrive on all day?

Depends if it has good cooling. We have several of them added to DVRs seeing pretty constant service, read/write for weeks at a time, using those aluminum Nexstar cases... no problems.

I left a little 200 gb on for at least 2yrs bt-ing, so they built to handle the abuse.
I'd think about how many free usb ports u have since i only have two free for flash drives. Also if ur worried abt speed i remember the vantec usb esata version comes with an esata bracket which extends the esata hole from ur mobo to the back of ur case and it should b identical to plugging it in ur mobo

Still have to open up ur case but it might give u some sort of portability without sacrifiicng speed or a usb port

Thanks for all the tips/advice guys. This is really helping alot.

I remember seeing eSata features on some of the enclosures. I'm not exactly sure what that is.

Looking at my mobo specs I dont see anything that says there's an eSata port on it.

I/O Expansions
Expansion Slots: 2 x PCI Express x16
3 x PCI
1 x PCI Express x1

Interfaces/Ports
Back Panel Interfaces: 1 x mini-DIN
6 x Type A USB 2.0 USB
1 x SATA
1 x S/PDIF Out
1 x RJ-45 Network
1 x Mini-phone Microphone
1 x IEEE 1394a FireWire
4 x Mini-phone Audio Line Out
1 x Mini-phone Audio Line In

Front Panel Interfaces: 1 x Power LED
1 x HDD LED
1 x On/Off Switch
1 x Reset Switch
1 x Speaker
3 x USB Header
1 x COM1
1 x FireWire Header
1 x Audio Header
1 x S/PDIF Out
1 x Chassis Intrusion Switch
1 x CD-in/Aux-in Connector

Number of IDE Interfaces: 1

Number of SATA Interfaces: 5

It's on line 9 of the above post.

That's what USB hubs are for.

Only problem with that is, it takes one of the SATA ports on the mobo. If they're already full-up, you're no further ahead.

"external SATA". Basically extends a cable from one of your onboard SATA connectors to an external rear-panel connector that looks similar to a USB port. External drives that support eSATA can then be plugged into that, giving you full SATA speeds. The ports are more robust than the flimsy plastic connectors on the mobo and drives, but other than that there's nothing special about it.

And just to add to that,
Cman333: by using eSATA, you will still need a power source, which doesn't help your needs.

Oh so thats what eSata is. Basically the same thing but extended. I thought it was a completely different thing. Good to know.

Well looks like I'm stuck with trying to see if I can wedge the HDD into the comp and see if I can find a right angle sata cable thats low profile and can clear my vid card. Most likely won't work because it looks like VERY minimal clearance, and my vid card is super snug in the case (barely fit, had to hold it down with one person, as the other screwed it in).

Otherwise I'm stuck with an external and will have to use a splitter for the power or something. I'm weary about having 12+ things plugged into one wall outlet. More clutter, ugh.

Thanks for everyone's insight. Definately helped make the buying decision easier.

Oops..i was thinking of a 2.5" cause he said a "smaller" HDD...i guess he meant in capacity. D'oh!

Yeah i think USB only supports 5V...i didnt know 2.5" was a lot slower than 3.5"...even if they have same spec for cache and rpm?

Well from the sound of it, your motherboard DOES have an eSATA connector on the back panel, so if the external case you get has eSATA, you can use that, but yes, you will still need to power it from something. Actually, you'll probably need to power the USB drive as well, so there's no getting away from that.

12+ things probably isn't an issue if most of them are low-current... just need another power bar!

2.5" laptop drives are almost all 5400 rpm, while 3.5" drives are commonly 7200rpm... that's why they're slower.

almost is right, they have several 7200rpm 2.5" drives

while it's ok to plug in printers and flash drives in usb hubs, 2.5" drives might not be seen if plugged in a hub

That's true. Might not be enough juice to power the drive, especially if it's powered through the USB port. If you want to plug it into a hub, I'd highly suggest using a USB hub that is externally powered so that all devices get enough power to it (especially the hard drive)

Having the hard drive not get sufficient power will cause the drive to power down during usage, causing corruption of your data.

If you're running out of SATA slots, I'd consider one of the following:
*Consolidate your drives. If you have a number of smaller drives in there, buy one larger drive and consolidate them all into the one drive. This way you're not limited to the constraints of the number of SATA ports.
*Buy a PCI SATA controller. This should give you up to 4 more extra ports to use.

External drive is nice, but as you mentioned, you want to reduce your clutter. It's worth considering though if you move files around a lot or need your data accessible from anywhere.

Well if any one ever considers getting a 2.5" HDD..get an external enclousure that supports both eSata and USB. I'm really satisfied with mine.

the one i have is 7200rpm..they're at a decent price now. Most were 5400rpm b/c of overheating issues in laptops.

Whoa. Sweet. I didn't know such a beast existed. Thanks. I don't really need a portable drive because all my comps are connected on the network so I have access to them anyways.

LOL I wish someone mentioned this earlier. Would've help my decision eay earlier. LOL

Something like this what I need?
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=Syba

I'm not sure what this RAID stuff is. So I'm not sure if this is compatible.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm referring to. You don't have to use it in a RAID configuration, but the option is there for you. It's just for redundancy. You'll only be using it for the extra ports.

As long as you got somewhere to mount your drives, and available power connectors to power the drive, you'll be fine. Cabling might look a little messy with the add-in card, but at least you got a few more ports available.

K thanks man. I'll try and figure it out which route to go. I have space for another 2-3 HDD's. But it never occured to me I wouldn't have enough ports and/or power connectors.

Doh all the hassles.

You should be fine with the power connectors. If you don't have enough SATA power connectors, buy one of these:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...facture=Others

That should give you another SATA power connector from the 3 pin molex connectors.