Most reliable high capacity HDD's??

I have the vantec nexstar mx dual enclosure, I paid 39.00 (on sale). It's a solid well built enclosure and has a built-in fan. At first I put one 750 gb sata seagate in it, but I needed more storage and added another 750gb sata maxtor. To install a drive just remove 4 screws and the sata drives just slide in.
Anytime I use it I always have another small fan blowing on the outside of the enclosure. This I do on any external drive I have, I never rely on the small internal fans.
That's the enclosure I recommend, but it is large and heavy but having an option for adding another hard drive is a definite plus.

As far as the most reliable drives, seagates and maxtors are the only drives that have never failed on me.

http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/277

 

Awesome, thanks again guys for the help.....another question tho;

If I want to add multiple internal(enclosure) drives, is there anything I need to consider before hand? As in the dual drive enclosure that was mentioned above, does it still just connect via 1 USB cable, or is it going to be one USB cable per drive? Is there anything driver or OS wise that needs to be done to start running multiple drives? Or am I only limited by how many USB ports I have?

Is that where RAID comes in(still don't clearly understand what it is)??

I'm thinking in the near future 2 1TB drives is all I'll be running, but I'd like to keep myself open to add more. Just not sure if I need to consider things before hand to set myself up to run more than 1.

Thanks again guys!

 

On my dual vantec enclosure, it's just one USB connector that connects to the computer. It's plug and play on my windows xp (no drivers needed), I can connect it to any computer and it will be automatically recognize.

The vantec, I just use it in the basic configuration. Each hard drive shows up with it's own drive letter when connected to the computer. But for those who want the "raid" configuration it can be setup that way, but I prefer to keep it simple.

Theres really no limit on how many external harddrives or internal hard drives you can connect to the computer and run at the same time. As long as you have the available connectors and usb ports. On my media computer I have 3 internal and 2 external drives, sometimes I run them all at the same time with no problem.

 

Indeed that enclosure, or for europeans the IcyBox ST-3220 will do the same job. The IcyBox doesn't do RAID, but RAID for an external box is ludicrous, at 30MB/s it's only worth using RAID1.

 

Ok I'm still confused tho. If the e-SATA connects directly to the motherboard, what make it any different from SATA? I'm sure the motherboard doesn't know/care if the drive is attached inside the case or outside. Seems the same as attaching a SATA drive, but instead of having the drive inside the computer, it's on the outside, but the connector is the same?

 

Alright guys, keeping all in this thread I guess....

I'm now confused with the WD and Seagate lineup. I think the latest models I should be checking out are the WD Caviar and the Seagate Barracuda. I'm not sure what models are the latest or best. Reliability is what I'm after.

With WD, is is the Caviar black, or green that is the newest?

With Seagate, is it the Barricuda ES.2, or the 7200.11 that is the newest?

Also, I think I saw a Seagate drive with a MTBF of 1.4...but can't seem to find it again. Anyone know?

Also, would getting a notebook 2.5 drive be more durable/reliable than a desktop drive?

 

Not read much about the Blacks, the Greenpower drives are the new energy efficient, silent ones, but probably won't match the Seagates for speed. The Blacks on the other hand are probably the faster ones.

 

AAKB? Aren't they the IDE ones?