External HDD: Make or buy?

[Knightmare]

I need an external HDD.
I've been comparing prices, and it seems that it's just as cheap to buy one as it is to make one.

Seagate FreeAgent ext. USB 2.0 500GB - $119.99 on sale.
Plug and play!

Or buy the components, assemble (15 min) and hope I did it right, for about the same price.

Pros and Cons?

Please help me decide. I REALLY need the extra space!

Thanks!

[Mr. Rager!]

Just buy it.

If something is wrong with it, you'd have a warranty.

Now, if there was a significant price difference, I'd say go MacGyver on it and there you go. But since there's really no price advantage, go with something that has a warranty.

[digilight]

I have several external HD's covering both sides. If you are going to make a external you want to make sure that you get an alluminum case. This will act as a heat sink where as the plastic case types will just bake the drive. They also make cases with built in cooling fans that will run you around 50-80 bucks. The drive I put together with a enclosure is using a Mad Dog case that does seem to pull alot of the heat away from the drive but the case will get hot as shit after a while. My newest drive is a WD 500 GB Mybook. It has a larger enclosure and some good venting on it. It also will go to sleep after a certain amount of time so you don't have to shut it off when you aren't using it. I also have an older WD 120 GB external thats about 3-4 years old and is constantly on with no problems.

By the way, I've heard that some best buys have the network 500 gb mybooks on clearance for 50 bucks. But I paid 119 bucks - a 25 coupon so about 94 bucks for my drive at Office Depot.

Western digital is clearancing alot of their drives right now to replace with newer models. Just make sure its the mybook as the other external they have has a higher failure rate. I've heard good things about the seagate free agent drives as well.

You're other options are do you want USB/Firewire/SATA/Ethernet connections.

[lordlundar]

The kits are really there if you already have a spare HDD, and want to make it External. If you don't have the spare, just buy a new one. Any slight savings from making one don't offset any frustrations you get out of it.

[Knightmare]

We can consider this thread closed. I finally just went out and bought one.
Seagate FreeAgent 500GB.