2.5" USB EXT Hard drive???????

Hey guys/gals

ive just spent over an hour researching 2.5" notebook drives for an external enclousure i havent yet found. It also needs to run solely on USB power! After all this time ive come away even more confused with IDE, SATA, PATA, SCSI, EIDE etc etc.

basically i now need the largest possible capacity in a 2.5" drive thats also as fast as possible, usb powered and preferably a pretty lookin enclousre thats as small as possible. from what ive found so far most external enclosures for 2.5" is IDE but the max size drive is SATA, a seagate drive, i take it thats incompatible!!!?

http://www.seagate.com/products/notebook/momentus.html

Pls, can any1 suggest some options as im totally lost as to the best situation cos ive now got a headache.

I also have a Maxtor onetouch II 300gb, triple interface drive now and what i love about it is the ability to lock the drive and have a password prompt on connection so its completely protected. Is there software that can do this on my future USB powered drive?

thanks in advance

 

I am almost completely sure that all external 2.5" enclosures can run purely on USB bus power. You should not have any trouble finding an enclosure that does this - it comes down to how much you want to spend and how good the enclosure looks.

As far as hard drive, again, its up to how much you can spend. Enclosures will work with pretty much all modern 1.8-2.5" hard drives.

 

There was a build your own external harddrive thread a day ago, it had some useful information.

 

Here's one: http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=SS-CGS-25K1&cats=131&catid=2345%2C315%2C170%2C131%2C161

 

Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160GB ATA-6 IDE 2.5"
List of 2.5" enclosures using IDE interface