Used Backup Hardware

Casing

We have tested two different casings intended for holding external hard disks. 

No-name casing by Litec

Front view with operation LED	Rear view with on/off switch, power supply socket, USB 2.0 and Firewire

 
The casing attracts attention because it has a beautiful and sturdy design. It contains USB 2.0 and Firewire interfaces and was sold for 43.- EUR in April 2005. Unfortunately, there are several drawbacks:

• The thermal design is poor. The hard disk is mounted on rails which are not in good thermal contact with the fully closed casing. The heat is not carried off well because the casing is not equipped with a fan.
• The casing does not contain an acitivity LED.
• Mounting of the drive is cumbersome: When inserting the hard disk, you must make sure that the LED cable is not sequeezed at the front of the casing.
• We have not been able to find a homepage of the manufacturer. This means that there is no support and also no way to update the firmware.

ICY BOX 350

Front view with operation LED	Opened ICY BOX 350

 
The casing is available in several versions that differ with respect to the interfaces and the visual appearance (e.g. blue overall illumination). The advantages for our application are evident:

• Good concept for removal of heat: The hard disk is mounted directly on the aluminum base plate using two countersunk head screws. The perforated metal sheet enclosing the casing allows the air to circulate. 
• The casing contains separate operating and activity LEDs.
• Support by the manufacturer and firmware updates are available via the homepage.

A minor drawback of the ICY BOX 350 is the poor mechanical stability and the fact that the device easily slips on a smooth surface.

Hard disks

We have tested several 200GB disks from Maxtor, Western Digital and Samsung. The technical data of today's drives are fully sufficent for our backup purposes. The following points also seem to be worth mentioning:

• For the best value in GByte/EUR, select the second largest harddrive model of a manufacturer. The harddrive with the largest capacity often seems to be overly expensive.
• There should be at least three years of manufacturer guarantee. In addition, it should be possible to handle guarantee claims directly with the manufacturer. In general, this saves time and it also works smoothly with drives made by Maxtor and Western Digital.
• The current harddrives made by Samsung are especially quiet and they also stay rather cool during operation.