Need help finding parts for an External HD

I'm building an external hard drive for storing television shows, movies, etc and I've had some confusion in finding the right parts for the least amount of money. If you have some experience building their own, could you recommend an enclosure and hard drive that you know to be a good buy?

I'm looking for an inexpensive external enclosure with both usb and firewire (preferably aluminum) and a 320 - 250 gb hd (preferably SATA and 7200rpm) compatible with it. Here's the tricky part:
I'm a poor college student who doesn't want to spend more than $120

Suggestions?

Thanks,
Dan

 

I doubt you could get what you want with that budget, the easiest part would be the hard drive, the hardest is getting firewire and usb aluminum for whatever is left of the $120

 

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what everyone's obsession with putting HDDs in an enclosure is. "Ready built" ones are often cheaper, more efficient and reliable. but anyway, here's your HDD. 320GB, SATA, and with a 16MB buffer, it should run nice and fast $89.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140

And here's your enclosure, with USB and FireWire interfaces. I don't have any experience with enclosures, but the reviews on the newegg look promising...
$32.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817106095

Bringing your total up to around $120.00, just around your budget.

Or you could buy this Nicer, more reliable WD MyBook for $115

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136022

 

People just assume putting them together seperately will be cheaper. It is sometimes. (most of the time?) You'll note the WD is 70 gigs less for a similiar price.

 

I agree that you should look at getting one from LaCie, Maxtor, Seagate, or the like. They are a pretty good value, have warranties, and are often better quality than build-it-your-own-darn-self enclosure kits.

If you already have a hard drive lined up, it can be cheaper, but just barely these days. If you do go that route: I like NexStar- I have always had good luck with their enclosures. I had a VanTec enclosure set hard drives on fire TWICE, which stems from them using really cheap power supplies. Whoever makes the 'Metal Gear Box' (sold at CompUSA and others) does a pretty good job.

 

well, that may be true, though if you just spend an extra ~$50 or so you can get thisWD MyBook for ~$180 plus tax/s&h. but if you're looking for the cheapest price, then maybe the HD with enclosure route is better for your situation.

 

Shops like CompUSA or Best Buy have an offer of around $50 off on external HDDs almost every week

 

but it's usually a MIR deal which tends to be a hit or miss type of deal.

 

I just bought a LaCie 250GB external drive for 99.99 at Best Buy, no MIR required. Watch your sunday papers! =D

 

The only reason I'm building mine is because I'm planning on using it with eSATA which only the very expensive seagate ready-built external HD has.

If I was just using USB, i'd get the WD

 

I built mine because I bought the HD for desktop use first, and decided to make it an external drive later. There are plenty of decent pre-made units, as well as numerous really crappy ones. If you build it yourself, you know what you're getting. Mine is a pretty decent unit, using a vantec nexstar 3 usb/firewire enclosure and a maxtor diamondmax 250 gb drive.

 

i have searched newegg recently and found a 320 gb western digital (i think) for 79.99 (i think) I havnt looked too much at enclosures however, when you do find an enclosure and drive, please post it as i am in the same situation as you.

 

yeah I saw the sunday paper, but I was more refering to CircuitCity more than BestBuy about the MIR. Even when it seems like it's an instant rebate, it turns out to be a MIR.(usually)

 

Well, depending on the interface you want you can find an enclosure for as little as $15-20 for a cheap USB or $45 USD or so for a nice usb/firewire combo.

 

So here's an update on my hard drive search. I finally ended up with a 320 gb my book premium from thenerds.net. With $10 off for google checkout and $5 off for the promo code affgoo2, it came out to be $141 and change.

This was more than I'd hoped to spend, but the wd my book looks nice, has usb and firewire, is aluminum, and has good reviews.