[geeks] external USB hard drive cases

[Michael Parson]

On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 12:10:30AM -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> I've decided to use an external hard drive to back up two computer
> systems using rsnapshot.  Combined with DVDs of the really important
> stuff, this should be reliable enough to trust.
> 
> I've been using rsnapshot for a few weeks now, and it is just about
> flawless.
> 
> We've had a few discussions about external backup drives, so I thought
> I'd revisit the topic to get recommendations for external drive
> enclosures.
> 
> I can't afford SCSI, so I'm leaning toward a decent SATA drive, like a
> Seagate Barracuda.  
> 
> I'm also leaning toward USB 2.0 interface, mainly because it is common.
> I thought about eSATA, but don't know much about it, and there aren't a
> lot of enclosures to choose from.
> 
> Anyone have any recommendations?  Preferrably, something you've used
> yourself.
> 
> My application will be running mostly rsnapshot backups hourly, so the
> drive will need to run 24/7 reliably, and I expect it to last years.  At
> least as long as the drive anyway (3-5 years).

I've used the $30 enclosures from CompUSA and Fry's:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=312100&pfp=cat3

For about $50, you can get one that does USB2 & FireWire, which is what
I tend to get for maximum flexibility.  They spend most of their time on
Firewire at my place.  I just use ATA/100 drives in them, Fry's tends to
have large Seagates on sale fairly regularly.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org