Why do people bother with pre build external hard drives instead of just buying esata enclosures which allow you to have as many hd's as you like?

Is there some secret I'm missing?
Want to run a quite fast big hard drive via an ESATA port…any disadvantage of just buying an esata enclosure?

Did it on my old laptop HDD when I upgraded to a SSD – its great – I can use the enclosure on USB or ESATA at a flip of a swith (and cable) – was only about £25 for the enclosure IIRC 🙂

Why do people bother with pre made external hard drives?

easier, lazy, lack of knowledge……

Don't talk to me about Hard Drives…

I've ordered a Netgear NAS Duo set up, that will allow me to have external storage for all my machines. I'll be using a mirrored RAID for extra safety.

Pre-made external drives often come complete with back-up software, and quick save features that enclosures don't. A 1TB external drive can be as low as £100 or less. A 1TB drive, plus enclosure, plus some back up software could cost a lot more.

And if you're not very tech-savvy, are a lot less hassle. Just plug and play.

But does an esata enclosure require any tinkering? Don't I just screw the hard drive into the case, plug in my esata cable and hey presto?

Yeah, but considering the cost of a pre-made drive, it's not worth it for a lot of people. A quick scan on dabs.com reveals that a 1TB SATA internal HD costs from £60, whereas the same size external drive with cables, back-up software etc starts at less than £70. In fact, a caddy and drive would cost you more.

I agree with both – Having an old SATA drive I got an enclosure – but getting a new SATA drive and enclosure is not necc better or more cost effective but at least you can specify whats in it and teh software not necc better. I got a Synology NAS without drives so I could source what ones I wanted – comes with full NAS software. BTW Windows 7 has good backup software bulit in not?