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    Questions about External Enclosures in general + specific product recommendations

    Discussion in 'Accessories' started by mocity02, Sep 21, 2012.

  1. mocity02

    mocity02 Newbie

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    I bought a HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition a month or so ago and recently replaced the HDD with a Crucial m4 SSD. I really feel limited by the only 128GB that I have so I figure it's time to convert this HDD into an external. It's a Seagate Momentus XT 750GB 7200RPM Hybrid (2.5" SATA). So, I have a few questions:
    1. Is it overkill putting this in an enclosure since it's a hybrid and would I be better off just buying an external hard drive instead of an enclosure? 2. Will USB 3.0 really improve my performance? I plan to use the external primarily as a way to store all of my music but also for back-up purposes.
    3. When shopping around for enclosures, there doesn't really seem to be (m)any that support SATA III. Does this actually matter or not? I've seen people claim that HDD's aren't able to max the output of SATA II anyway.

    Thanks for the answers and recommendations (reading some of the Newegg reviews kind of freaked me out probably unnecessarily)
     
    mocity02, Sep 21, 2012
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  2. tijo

    tijo Sacred Blame

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    1: If the drive is just gonna sit on a shelf, turn it into an external, might a well use it anyways.
    2: Yup, file transfers will be much faster on USB3.0, won,t affect movies or music, but when it's time to back things up, you'll be glad you have it.
    3: Doesn't matter for an external drive really.

    Some enclosures i use and don't mind recommending:
    Newegg.com - VANTEC NST-280SU3-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black USB3.0 & eSATA NexStar 3 SuperSpeed Enclosure (USB3.0 and e-SATA, mine works just fine)
    Newegg.com - VANTEC NexStar 3 NST-280S3-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black USB 3.0 External Enclosure (USB3.0, haven't actually tried that one)
    Newegg.com - Vantec NexStar TX 2.5" SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive/SSD Enclosure - Model NST-210S2-BK (USB2.0)
    Newegg.com - Mukii TIP-230U3-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black with Red Highlight USB 3.0 USB Powered External Enclosure (USB3.0)
    Newegg.com - Mukii TIP-230SU-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black with Orange Highlight USB2.0 & eSATA USB Powered External Enclosure (USB2.0 and e-SATA)
    Newegg.com - Mukii TIP-230U2-BK Aluminum 2.5" Black with Green Highlight USB 2.0 USB Powered External Enclosure (USB2.0)
     
    tijo, Sep 21, 2012
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