[Nassifer]

Hello all, I hope all is well. I have a question about ext. HDD. I have recently converted to a Macperson, and now I have a bit of a problem. I have a HDD from the PC world that I both want to use and need to use. It is a SATA drive, and my MacPC Audio 733 does not have a SATA port, I have tried to find one of the daughter board converter from SATA to IDE but to no luck. Now I guess I want to go to an ext HDD enclosure and want to know if it would do any damage to leave the ext HDD enclosure on all the time, I have heard that you should not do this, just want to ask people that might have this same situation.

Thanks for the help in advance.


Abdulah

[SSharon]

Welcome to Mac

I would not leave my external HD on all the time unless I did the following:
1) bought a case with a fan
2) ensured good airflow around the case
3) made frequent backups of the data on the drive

I don't use my drive often and so I specifically got an enclosure with no fan. Even doing the above I consider leaving the drive on all the time even if you have the computer set to spin down non-active drives, but let's see what others have to say.

[bearcatrp]

SSharon is right on the money. Get one with a fan to keep it cool since it will be on all the time. You might want to get a 2 drive external, 1 for the whatever your files your using and one for backup. There are some that will run raid so if one dies, your data is not lost. Definately have it spin down when not in use.
Randy

[mduell]

Fans aren't a necessity IMO; hard drives don't dissipate that much heat (~10W) and a metal enclosure radiates just fine.
Space around the case is necessary, fans or not.

Here's a good fan-less enclosure.

[bearcatrp]

Nice external enclosure. Wish it had FW800 ports.

[mduell]

*bam*

[bearcatrp]

Thanks. Have you used this kind before? Was thinking of putting a 1TB drive in this but also looking for a 2 bay case.

[mduell]

I have not used that brand before; I don't want Firewire, so I buy different enclosures that better meet my needs. It will work fine with 1TB.

AMS VENUS DS3R is a nice 2 bay FW enclosure.

[tycheung]

i haven't had an issue w/ my externals over the past 7-8 yrs or so but then my ibook/macbook generally spins them down if they're idle for more than yea number of minutes or so. which is good, my hard drives are saving the planet, dammit!