CT,<br><br>I am currently using external sata II drives from 80GB to 2TB and we have done away with the enclosure entirely.<br>I use what we are calling a drive toaster because it is a powered usb (oeeSATA) 2-dock thingy that can take, as hinted, 2 drives at a time. When I am doing something drive-intensive, like copying 50GB files back and forth, or 1.5 million 2MB files back and forth, the drives get very hot, but they cool down as soon as the read/write cycles are done. These drive toasters cost about $40 from TigerDirect or NewEgg. They are good if you ever have more than 1 external drive. I haven't had any major issues using them, however sometimes I have to manually load a drive when I insert it. Ubuntu has a great little gui widget called a disc utility that lets you mount drives, unmount them, format them and so on.<br>
If you use large files (over 4GB) don't format your drives with FAT32.<br><br>Wolf<br><br> <a href="http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=external+drive+toaster&oe=utf-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=10505141576531084628&sa=X&ei=b7LFTqS9EpGFtgen0sGVCg&ved=0CFEQ8gIwAQ">http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=external+drive+toaster&oe=utf-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=10505141576531084628&sa=X&ei=b7LFTqS9EpGFtgen0sGVCg&ved=0CFEQ8gIwAQ</a><br>
This link shows the toaster I use and a few others. Even single-slot toasters.<br>I don't know if eSATA is too new or too old. It is not on any of my physical servers or workstations. It would be faster than USB, if you have a port for it.<br>
<br>-- <br>This Apt Has Super Cow Powers - <a href="http://sourcefreedom.com">http://sourcefreedom.com</a><br>