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usb hard drives
About Fans
little 40mm fans for today's hard drives and optical drives are a joke. I have seen equipment burn out...
Most Off-the-shelf External USB 3.5" Hard Drives don't have a fan, but need an 80mm fan or two. without a fan, the heat generated can cause drive failure when used incessantly.
Manufacturers who make 3.5" drive enclosures with large enough fans: glyph, lacie, coolmax usa, rosewill, startech, thermaltake.
Most all hotter drives like maxtor die from heat after a 3-hour backup session because they have no fan. special fan-cooled cases are available though.
It seems drives the size of 500GB or larger in an enclosed box get extremely hot (>170°F).
This can cause drive failure (happened to someone's Maxtor: external USB hd box, no airholes).
commercial electronic components (chips) are rated to only work at absolute maximum 85°C(185°F), at which temperature they become damaged!
Hitachi Terabyte drives get even hotter because they have more platters to spin: hitachi 1TB drive is described as "hot, fast, and loud".
convection cooling (no fan) is not enough for today's drives.
Buy external enclosures with fans in them, and use that for a case, preferably one that is metal (which conducts heat) AND has a fan. you must have a decent fan, ESPECIALLY with 250+GB drives, 7200+RPM drives. heat can also be the cause of stiction, where on certain mfrs of drives the lubricant on the platter becomes like glue due to the heat and when the head rests on the platter and cools down, it's stuck and the drive won't spin. heat can also cause damage to the electronics. hence...
as of 12/12/2011, 2.5" drives do not need a fan. there are 1TB drives out, but they are bigger than might fit in a normal 2.5" drive case.
12/12/2011. up to 2TB. SATA I/II/II/SSD, ALL capacities. Windows 7/Vista/XP/2003/2000, Mac 10.3 and later. Aluminum. I recommend this for 2.5" but not for 3.5" since it has no fan.
12/12/2011. SATA I/II metal case. big 80mm side fan. rosewill gives way too little information on their products for me to be comfortable with the USB 2.0 backward-compatibility of their USB 3.0 products. it says only "usb 3.0". does not say what its maximum hard drive size is. has one-touch backup? SATAI/II. accommodates any 3.5" drive up to 1.5TB. led status
12/12/2011. SATA I/II metal case. big 80mm side fan. SATA I/II. manufacturers recommend metal and a fan, so this one is the way to go. has one-touch backup. SATAI/II. accommodates any 3.5" drive up to 1.5TB. led status
12/12/2011. SATA I/II metal case. big 80mm side fan. SATA I/II. manufacturers recommend metal and a fan, so this one is the way to go. has one-touch backup. SATAI/II. accommodates any 3.5" drive up to 1.5TB. led status
CoolMax CD-390B-U2 - USB 2.0 IDE HD metal enclosure with fan, available at performance-pcs $25, axiontech $25
8/29/2009. metal case. big 80mm side fan. this is probably the best one you can get. ignore the drive at the top 1/4 of the page. manufacturers recommend metal and a fan, so this one is the way to go. has one-touch backup. ATA-133. accommodates any 3.5" drive.
BYTECC ME-535U2-BK Aluminum 5.25"/3.5" Black USB 2.0 IDE External Enclosure - Retail, available from newegg $30
8/29/2009. IDE only, up to 1TB. unscrew the back cover. no instructions.
BYTECC ME-747U2-[SL/BLUE/BK] 3.5" SATA & USB2.0 External Enclosure w/ cooling Fan - Retail, available from nextag $34
8/29/2009. SATA only, up to 1TB.
ANTEC Black MX-1 Actively Cooled External Enclosure, available at nextag $48-60, axiontech $49
8/29/2009. USB 2.0, eSATA. SATA. supports up to 1TB. "no drivers".ME/2k/xp/vista
RAID cases
ICY DOCK MB561US-4S 4 Bay Series External Enclosure eSATA + USB2.0 combo - Pearl White, available from performance-pcs.com $310
4-bay RAID 0 (striping). single-port eSATA. up to 1TB/drive. detachable 80mm ball bearing fan (for maint.). rubber padded soles. shock absorbtion hdd trays.
Vantec NexStar MX NST-400MX-SR, available from newegg $120, nextag $120
8/29/2009. price doubled. front vents and rear fan. SATA II. USB 2.0, eSATA. aluminum case. 2 bays, capacity to 2TB. JBOD,RAID 0/1 modes.
Vantec NexStar MX NST-400MX-S2, available from nextag $59-62
8/29/2009. front vents and rear fan. SATA II. USB 2.0. aluminum case. 2 bays. capacity to 2TB. JBOD.
ISTARUSA Black All Aluminum Mobile Rack, 5x3.5" SATA, available at axiontech $105
8/29/2009. fans and fan failure alarm. hot-swap. 5 bays. it is unknown if this is a USB 2.0 thingy, but it seems to come with 5 SATA cables. probably uses some sort of PCI card.
USB Disk Drive
LaCie d2 Quadra 301440U (1-3TB), available from lacie $150(500GB)-$340(2TB)
8/29/2009. small 40mm fan. FireWire 800, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, eSATA 3Gb/s. 3yr warranty. 1-click backup software.
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 3TB USB 3.0 Black USB 3.0 Kit External Hard Drive STAC3000101, available from newegg.com $229.99
8/29/2009. switchable base to change interfaces (firewire, usb 2.0, usb 3.0). I don't think this drive has a fan (advertised as silent), but it seems to survive OK, so I only recommend it with caution.
8/29/2009. small 40mm fan. JBOD or RAID 1 or RAID 0 with status LED. firewire 400/800, USB 2.0. capacities to 3TB. Used by Pro Audio folk.
[NAS]Freecom Data Tank WLAN 2TB, available from freecom $879
8/29/2009. USB 2.0, FireWire 800 and FireWire 400.
hardware encryption.
2 year warranty and unlimited free helpdesk support.
Win/Mac/Linux.
remote access through web browser and FTP.
RAID 0 or 1.
Network hard drive storage, router, fileserver, USB server, firewall all in one device.
floppy drives
some systems don't come with a floppy drive, and there are network card vendors who still distribute their drivers on a floppy disk.
floppy drive interfaces are disappearing from motherboards.
anyone who wants to make a bootable cd will appreciate a floppy drive, since a floppy disk is used to make the boot image. ranish partition manager still comes as a floppy image for some odd reason (no longer available).
I would go with TEAC, HP, SONY (if they still make them) seems to be the best brand that I know of that still makes floppy drives.
floppy disks are no longer available from Office Max.