That's good for hard, offsite backup, but optical media isn't always very accessible for a lot of folks. I'll never dig out a DVD if I can just stream from Netflix, for example. Also, blank media is still fairly pricey, it might be a lot more in the longrun than a couple of drives plus cheap NAS.

Does it matter what kind of internal hard drive you get with an enclosure? Is it all sort of one size fits all, or are there compatibility issues? Some internal hard drives seem like they have enclosures already, some seem like they're just open with the spinny disk looking things and green board things exposed.

No, if it's a SATA drive and a SATA enclosure you are fine. Make sure you have a USB connector if the external enclosure connects via that or eSATA if it's eSATA.

FWIW, I have a pair of Seagate FreeAgent GO drives, one about 3 years old (160 GB, USB2.0, my game drive), and a newer one about a year old (500 GB, USB2.0, back-ups and random data). Not a hitch from either one, and they go with me in the laptop bag everywhere I travel for work (dusty, hot, and humid environments, often). Really pleased with both of them. On the gaming drive (the older and smaller one), I don't notice any big delays loading games since they're mostly gogs anyway. If you want a simple off-the-shelf solution then I'll give a thumbs-up for the FreeAgent drives.

^ This but . . . go with eSATA if possible the USB is waaaaaay slower. The Thermaltake came with the eSATA external port bracket that plugged into the MB but other brands may not.

Edit:Course your MB needs to support eSATA internally or externally or you will need to buy an eSATA card.

Western Digital hard drives are pretty damn hardy. Mine's 4 years and still going strong.

I have 2 Samsung 5400rpm 1 terrabyte HDDs in Antec MX-1 enclosures. I have had them for 2 years now, running perfect. I also have 2 more Samsung 5400rpm 1 terrabyte HDDs inside my PC case, these are for storage and the externals are redundant back-ups of the internals, because nothing last forever! I use Allway Sync, it is free file and folder synchronization software for Windows, and works perfectly for backing up the entire drives. Also 5400rpm is fine for storage drives! Plus keeps temps down in external enclosures, but I still recommend an external enclosure with a fan.

Okay, so I think I have my setup now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371008

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

That's a

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

With a

Antec MX-1 USB2.0 & eSATA External Enclosure

Yay? Nay?


------------------------------------------------
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OR

SAMSUNG EcoGreen F2 HD154UI 1.5TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

I kind of like this one better. 5400 RPM, since I plan on using it primarily for storage and not a running hard drive. Plus it's $10 cheaper than the 1 TB.

Ive been using Externals for over 10 years now... the best are open space Aluminum enclosures. They allow aireflow and heat disipation. For speed and security i would highly suggest:

Speed:
SSD or 7200 RPM
ESATA connection/139A/USB2.0 in that order of aviliblity

Solid Aluminum with a fan if able...
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=92&name=External-Enclosures&Order=RATING

The Roswill and Vantec seem nice.... I use an solid Aluminum Roswill and ive used a 1TB under high stress usage on a network over a period of a year now with 0 failure rate... prior i had a 250gig going for 3 years and the heat was perfect. heat kills hard drives...

Also never get a "green" drive, as example there are WD green and blacks... the greens are unreliable and ive had a few fail, blacks have never failed a single time under high stress constant use raid 1 arrays in mission critical systems.

I have an external Western Digital that I've owned for the last 5 years and it's still going strong. Honestly though I do not use it much, mainly just to backup my music and some videos and to have during reformat time.

I backup GOG games and other things of that nature on DVDs and CDs. I burn patches and cracks (if needed) to discs and put them in the game box. I burn download only games to discs and put them in plastic sleeves.

Don't go WD if you want to run the drives in RAID, they've started removing TLER from the firmware and you cannot re-enable it. That means they won't work in RAID configurations. Also their Green drives are huge PITAs in RAID configs even when you have one on which TLER can be enabled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TLER

You can edit the TLER setting as explained here, its a WD HDD firmware editor.

Green drives are fine.

I've used them in external HD's ever since WD release them.

Also currently have 12 of them in a RAID6 config at work (yes the green ones). The've ran 24/7 for the past year and a half with only one failure (power outage).

really? ive had nothing but problems with the green's... everything from bad sectors, to frozen heads, even had one so hot i could barely touch it... your company has some balls of steel letting you do RAID6