The most economical thing to do for you is go with external HDD (build it yourself w/ the HDD & the enclosure) and get a PC Card for USB 2.0 (approx $20) or Firewire (or both if you want :: approx: $35). You can get USB 2.0 enclosures that are cheaper that dont include the firewire if you want. The money that you spend on a 60GB HDD for your laptop is the same as you would spend on a 200GB HDD + enclosure.

As stated above, the CF & SD cards are slower, they might have high-speed ones, but those will cost you a couple hundred $$.

I'm buying a laptop real soon and selling my desktop PC, how would I go about buying an external hard drive enclosure where I can go from IDE to USB/Firewire without it being too expensive?

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quote:

Originally posted by Max Thomson I'm buying a laptop real soon and selling my desktop PC, how would I go about buying an external hard drive enclosure where I can go from IDE to USB/Firewire without it being too expensive?

Search for "drive enclosures" this is what you want. There are lots of these around by lots of companies.

Something like this: http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDet...01312&kbid=1007

But if you look you should be able to find some cheaper ones for less then $30.

EDIT: like this one: http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=p:10500976

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Last edited by auujay on Nov-18-2004 at 03:04

Here is what I purchased about a month ago:

- Silver 3.5" Aluminum USB 2.0 / Firewire External IDE Enclosure: http://www.xpcgear.com/caseufe740.html

- 200GB Western Digital HDD: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/ProdHD-I...+Drives+%2D+IDE

Total comes to about $145 before shipping. I purchased with some systems I was building for friends and built another one of these enclosure setups for my dad, so shipping was covered for me. I looked into all the options and read as many reviews as I could. The 3.5" enclosures that have fans are plastic and many reviews said they have a chance of dying out in a few months. The alumnium enclosures are smaller, dont have fans, but dissipate the heat really well. The enclosure itself gets warm, but not hot.

As for why I went with the USB 2.0 / Firewire, I have a laptop that supports it and read that the chipset that opperates the firewire enclosures was a better chipset. I also read some problems with the cheaper USB 2.0 chipset. Like I have said before, I have had this for about a month or 2 and have had 0 problems. Never had to install any drivers, simply plug and play.

Hard Drive:
-cheaper (about $1/GB)
-bigger (up to about 200GB)
-faster (about 50MB/sec)

Memory Cards:
-expensive (at least $100/GB)
-smaller (up to 4GB?)
-slower (much lower than HDDs)


looks like a no-brainer to me...

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If you really wanted to be cool, you could get Firewire800 and double your speed.

And if you really needed space, you could get a 300GB drive. They dont make enclosures that support the newly released, 400GB drives yet (or at least not that i have seen).

So hd is the way to go.....I was gonna get an PCMCIA Card bus controller for usb 2.0 on my laptop....but the thing is, is that most controllers I see will not fit WITH my wireless card which really sucks sometimes....I can get an PCMICA adaptor that can handle a CF card and still use my wireless...hmmm.....maybe I will just get another HD for my comp......or does anyone know a card bus that has a pig tail for USB 2.0 so that it doesn't get in the way of the other card?......or even a firewire one would be cool too...

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quote:

Originally posted by onceler The most economical thing to do for you is go with external HDD (build it yourself w/ the HDD & the enclosure) and get a PC Card for USB 2.0 (approx $20) or Firewire (or both if you want :: approx: $35). You can get USB 2.0 enclosures that are cheaper that dont include the firewire if you want. The money that you spend on a 60GB HDD for your laptop is the same as you would spend on a 200GB HDD + enclosure. As stated above, the CF & SD cards are slower, they might have high-speed ones, but those will cost you a couple hundred $$.

I totally agree. Here's a good enclosure kit that the pc shop i work at sells. They're pretty reliable, haven't had any problems since we've started selling them early 2003 and i own a couple myself.

http://www.coolmaxusa.com/products_gemini.asp?item=4

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quote:

Originally posted by dj chex I totally agree. Here's a good enclosure kit that the pc shop i work at sells. They're pretty reliable, haven't had any problems since we've started selling them early 2003 and i own a couple myself. http://www.coolmaxusa.com/products_gemini.asp?item=4

Wow..that looks cool.....now just to find a good PCMCIA controller that would allow me to use my wireless card too!

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Here are some PCMCIA USB 2.0 cards that use a dongle:

http://www.bixnet.com/seezusb20cap.html
http://www.usbgear.com/USBG2UE.html

or just use this google search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...G=Google+Search

Anyone know where I can get those PCMCIA w/dongle in canada?

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quote:

Originally posted by Dj Ricky H Anyone know where I can get those PCMCIA w/dongle in canada?

I'll second that, I want to add USB2.0 and possible Firewire to my laptop, but want to also have room to either have a Wifi card or a sound card plugged into the PCMCIA cardslot.