Building 2.5" external "passport sized" hard drive

[Steven]

Hi, done a bit of a search and not too much around so... I want a portable 2.5" external HD that is "passport sized". I think buying the HD and caddy separately seems the way to go...

I saw this WD passport drive here. Great price but I very much would prefer Seagate. Call me difficult but guess which of 3x seagate, 1x hitachi and 1xWD failed at home. I do not mind paying a few extra £ for Seagate

a) Is this the "right" kind of HD? I don't know much about the connection types. And OEM - can I still buy?
b) Caddies. I see cheap £3 ones. I see £30 ones sold by Maplin. I presume it matters, but is it 30 notes worth' matters?

N.B. Absolutely no Ebay links. Sorry!

Thank you in advance

 

[meansizzler]

For good speed/performance/low powered drive I would go for a Seagate 5400.3, unfortunately cannot help you with the caddy, to many out there, but some advice would be to make sure the caddy supports more than a 137GB hard drive and NTFS, currently I use a Synology iUSB 250, which works great and only requires a single USB for both power and DATA where as the previous Icybox I used required sepearate USB connectors for power and data, in general if the hard drive is 500ma or less, then it will only require a single USB for both power and Data.

I use a 100GB Seagate 7200.1 IDE drive "7200RPM",very fast and quiet.

The good thing about the iUSB is that it has a separate password protected partition for storing personal data..eg..documents/pictures.. very hand it is.., but pricey...

 

[Steven]

Done a bit more reading. Seagate Momentus drives have a lot of internet love it seems

Link a) or b) They each have it as a different connection type? Bear in mind I'm a noob. And a lot of caddies seem to be IDE only? I see a lack of 2.5" caddies for sata HD's

 

[treacle]

Selecting a "caddy" make sure it has a fan.

I use a 3.5,
With a caddy you can swap and change drives as and when required.

IDE is the commonist and generally the cheapest.

 

[Steven]

Sigh. Nigh on impossible to find a 2.5" sata caddy not for extortionate prices it seems.

Can anyone suggest the right 2.5" 80gb Seagate hard drive off www.ebuyer.co.uk that I can pair with an IDE caddy? Thanks

 

[Stiggy]

USB2 will be more than fast enough for most uses.

I've got an ST9808211A which works great in my 2.5" caddy. Any of the OEM drives on ebuyer would be OK. Just make sure your caddy supports drives up to 80GB.

 

[whitestar96]

I've got several of these for work & they're so useful I got one for use at home. Use a Seagate 80gb drive in the one at home, very quite, very light.

http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/products/product.asp?id=2952