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Benefits and drawbacks of each? Or are they basically the same and it's just up to the person?

Factory external drives tend to more expensive (possibly a lot) for the same capacity but they (sometimes) come in a slightly smaller package (because the HD doesn't have to be user replaceable) then if you go with an enclosure. Technologically they're identical. For 2,5" (laptop) and smaller drives, the factory ones tend to have only a single USB connector while enclosures tend to play it safe and add another one for additional power draw, however most of the time you're OK if you don't connect that additional one, especially with modern drives.

Personally, I tend to want as much capacity as possible for my buck, so I prefer the enclosure route and do have this (maybe unwarranted) feeling that the factory produced ones are for the computer illiterate.

The ultimate in external enclosures is Drobo. Short of that (ie., if you don't have $500 to spend on the enclosure alone), the difference is that you can upgrade something in an enclosure. I, personally, haven't noticed a huge difference in price between internal HDD capacity and external ones if you find a good sale, and so unless you're continuously upgrading your drive I find it much easier to just buy an entirely new, factory-enclosed drive, since that lets me keep the old drive and run both of them simultaneously, when necessary. It makes things like transferring files to a new drive much simpler when you already have a separate enclosure for it. Try and get an external drive or enclosure, though, that you've actually seen. I bought a Calvary drive, once, and the blinking indicator light damn near drove me insane. I much prefer drives that just have an indicator light that stays on and doesn't bother me.

Lately prepackaged enclosures have been as cheap as or cheaper than do it your self, the big chain here had 500gb external drives on for 120$ (cad). Heck at that price sometimes the prepackaged drives are cheaper then just the drive it's self

functionally they're both the same. with the sweet price point being the 500gb drives. You will pay a premium for the smaller sized drives (basically a laptop hd in an enclosure) but it's the same whether you do it your self or purchase parts. I've tended to do it my self for the laptop drives as I use my older hard drive from my laptop that way when I upgrade it.

Generally, the dedicated external ones use laptop hard drives, making them smaller, lighter, and able to function without a power brick. They will, however, be more expensive, and less user-serviceable.

Pezzoni wrote:Generally, the dedicated external ones use laptop hard drives, making them smaller, lighter, and able to function without a power brick. They will, however, be more expensive, and less user-serviceable.

There are lots and lots and lots of 3.5 inch drives that come in enclosures. I would even say that a significant majority of external hard-drives sold, today, are 3.5 inch ones.

An interesting thing I've noticed is that it's cheaper to get an enclosure online through Newegg or something, instead of going the local store route. Which is odd, considering my local shop, Memory Express, is fairly cheap for most other things. It's just enclosures that I've noticed are close to double Neweggs price.

Unless you find a sale, the price difference of between $20-$40 for an internal vs and external drive is more than the price of an enclosure (assuming you're looking at something off of Newegg or you can find cheaper ones in a shop).

I did find another computer shop in town that looks promising, so we'll see what their prices are like.

USB2.0 is also slower than SATA or its external counterpart eSATA.

Isn't eSATA only compatible with certain motherboards, though?

eSATA, AFAIK, is compatible with any motherboard that already has SATA. And if your motherboard doesn't have SATA, there's always a pci card to give it to you.

Also, take Firewire over USB 2.0. Although USB has a peak rate of 480Mb/s, it can't sustain that. However, Firewire's peak rate of 400Mb/s is sustainable, making it much faster for large files.

Braedley wrote:eSATA, AFAIK, is compatible with any motherboard that already has SATA. And if your motherboard doesn't have SATA, there's always a pci card to give it to you.

Also, take Firewire over USB 2.0. Although USB has a peak rate of 480Mb/s, it can't sustain that. However, Firewire's peak rate of 400Mb/s is sustainable, making it much faster for large files.

This depends heavily on what the purpose of the external drive is. If the drive is to serve merely as a supplement to existing storage, then yes, looking into eSATA or Firewire is definitely valid. If, however, the drive is intended to be a large portable storage device (i.e. "hey, I want to take my huge photo collection to a friend's house and trade photos!") then at least having USB support (as there are external drives/enclosures which feature both USB and Firewire connectivity) could be crucial since a lot of people don't have eSATA or Firewire ports on their computer.