External HDD Options

[BRUTALiTY]

Am looking to purchase an external hdd soon and have a few things to ponder before I do.

I bought a Maxtor/Seagate 1TB external a while back which bricked on me (it's recognised but can't be accessed...probably salvagable but anyways...). I was curious to know as a result of this, whether I should consider 'better' brands, and what people might reccomend. For instance, should I focus on WD, are they more reliable? What are people's experience (as subjective I guess as they may be...)

Secondly, I'm unsure whether I should opt for a model with e-sata. While sometimes double the price, it would be nice to transfer files at what should theoretically be 10x the speed of usb. It's unlikely I'll be moving it around a lot so the advantage of usb allowing 'hot-swapping' isn't terribly overbearing, but will I ever reach the transfer rates of e-sata that are preached? Is it worth it?

Are there other things I should be considering?

Fairly mundane question I guess, but would appreciate any comments nonetheless

[priorax]

With WD and Seagate harddrives, if you open the enclosure to change drives, you will void your warranty.

What I was saying, was get something like this, http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_p...oducts_id=13889 put a drive in there. Tahdah, you have an external drive ready to be initialized.

Or for 2.5" if you wanted it http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_p...oducts_id=14536

Please note, these were cases I found quickly, feel free to do more research, and I would highly reconmend it

And when in doubt for how to install, I don't doubt they will provide manuals

[BRUTALiTY]

ah, yeah yeah, i thought maybe there were some enclosures that were made easy for plugin/out.

sounds good. astone seem fairly consistent in my enclosure searches, plus it comes prepackaged in that CitySoftware enclosure/hdd deal. any known issues?