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[Mr ChriZ]

I'm looking at buying a new hard-disk (again!).  I'd like the disk to be removable
by some form so I've been looking at two options...
1.  A Sata Hard drive of my preference with a USB converter on it...
2.  A USB hard-drive....

2 Seems most well packaged, but you don't get the advantage of knowing
what the disk is going to be like...

I'm just wondering if anyone had much experience with these?
Main concerns is it must be almost silent.  I can't stand noisy hard disks.
I've used IBM/Hitachi Deathstars without issues in this department for
a while simply because they are so quiet...

It also needs to be between 160gb's and 250
Also on a fairly tight budget..

Any recommendations/thoughts would be much appreciated..

[IanG]

So far as I know, there's no technical difference between them - USB hard drives are just ATA drives in an enclosure with an adapter.  I don't know if going to SATA would give you any performance improvement, but I doubt it. 

Regarding costs, I can only base things on UK prices, but USB disk prices are only a little higher.  On the other hand, once you've got the enclosure, you can put whatever disk you want in it, and you can add more removeable storage for just the cost of the HD.

Ian G.

[Mr ChriZ]

Cheers Ian.
Has any one had any direct contact with one of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007R6CGC/qid=1134652466/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/026-4151771-0374826

A buffalo External USB drive?

It's seems very cheap for what it is.
I don't think Performance is going to be a major issue on this
drive as I'm only going to be storing more Images, Video, Audio
to it etc

[LonWar]

I have 2 Maxtor One Touch's... 300 and 250 gb.

Never had any problems.

[Mr ChriZ]

Well here goes.  I'm buying a Buffalo!

Man I've always wanted to say that! 

[bob]

Seems like a nice price....

I bought an enclosure with both ieee1394 and USB 2 and put in the drive of my choice, a hitachi with the liquid bearings. Very fast, very quiet. If the enclosure has an oxford chipset you can tweak the some of the settings (at least on the 1394 interface) to the drive to maximize performance.

This hitachi powers down automatically when not in use so the enclosure can be fanless unless you are running it constantly (or you have a drive that you can't set to idle down) in which case an enclosure with a fan is pretty necessary.