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This may seem like a stupid question, but I'll pose it anyway. I have two S-ATA
drive in my system. I want to add an additional external drive for music and
photos. I know I can purchase a USB or firewire external drive and just hook it
up. What I'm wondering is, I have a drive enclosure that I bought last year
after building a new system, and having problems trabsferring data from an old
drive into the new computer. The only way I ended up being able to do so was to
buy a drive enclosure and put the hard drive into it, hook it up by USB and it
worked fine. It showed up as a drive letter and I was able to transfer all the
data to the new drives. So my question is this: Since it would cost me more to
buy an "external" drive that just to purchase a hard drive, is there any reason
I couldn't just buy a new hard drive, put it into the enclosure and run the
whole thing as a full time external drive? I realize that the enclosure is
nothing more than a plastic box with the connections and a power supply. But are
they intended to be used long term? Is there anything different in a drive made
specifically to be an external drive? Thanks.

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> This may seem like a stupid question, but I'll pose it anyway. I have two
> S-ATA
> drive in my system. I want to add an additional external drive for music
> and
> photos. I know I can purchase a USB or firewire external drive and just
> hook it
> up. What I'm wondering is, I have a drive enclosure that I bought last
> year
> after building a new system, and having problems trabsferring data from an
> old
> drive into the new computer. The only way I ended up being able to do so
> was to
> buy a drive enclosure and put the hard drive into it, hook it up by USB
> and it
> worked fine. It showed up as a drive letter and I was able to transfer all
> the
> data to the new drives. So my question is this: Since it would cost me
> more to
> buy an "external" drive that just to purchase a hard drive, is there any
> reason
> I couldn't just buy a new hard drive, put it into the enclosure and run
> the
> whole thing as a full time external drive? I realize that the enclosure is
> nothing more than a plastic box with the connections and a power supply.
> But are
> they intended to be used long term? Is there anything different in a drive
> made
> specifically to be an external drive? Thanks.
>
Nope. Go for it. There is no difference between the DIY kit and the
expensive "pretty" store bought units.

I have a similar enclosure, with an old 5gig HD. I've had it running 10+
hours a day for over a year. I used to "mirror" all my files at work onto
the drive, and bring it home with me, especially on the weekends. Now I have
a VPN so I don't do that anymore, but (except for the time I dropped it) it
worked flawlessly, and still does. (I take it with me when I travel in case
I can't get a high-speed connection.)