Multi-Bay External HDD Enclosures?

[ArkiStan]

I had 3 hard drives in my old desktop, which doesn't work anymore, and I'm mainly using a laptop now. I want to continue to use all the hard drives so I thought I'd get an external enclosure that can house all 3 hard drives. I've seen several options on hardware sites, but they generally seem pricey and get pretty poor ratings. Are these reliable?

Another option would be to get a single external enclosure and a new 1.5 TB HDD where I could transfer all the data from the 3 hard drives and even have plenty of spare space. This option also automatically creates a redundant back up of my data at the same time.

Which would be the smarter option? Cost-wise, they would come out to be quite similar, BTW.

[ArkiStan]

Also, if I were to get a new 1.5 TB hard drive that will be connected to my laptop through a USB 2.0 external enclosure, will the HDD speed specs even matter that much? If the USB connection is the bottleneck anyway, I should just go for the cheapest drive, right?

[johnnymk]

I would do the 1.5 TB option but I have yet to find a reliable one in that size, i.e. Seagate and Iomega. I use Windows Explorer to transfer large files from one drive to another external hard drive (Drag and Drop)

Newegg has a few options with readers comments for external enclosures.

[DarkFury]

TigerDirect sells HD enclosures... Those are stackable if you want to do multiple drives.

But yeah, based on size, I'd just buy one 1.5TB drive and be done with it, rather than 3 small drives.

[Jeffbx]

Do you have an external eSATA connector on your machine?

[johnnymk]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152175&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-Hard+Drives-_-SAMSUNG-_-22152175

[pd123]

I have this docking station... http://www.buy.com/prod/thermaltake-blacx-n0028usu-docking-station-1-x-3-5-1-3h-hot-swappable/q/loc/101/206830127.html
also Calvary has one that holds two drives.. http://www.amazon.com/Cavalry-Storage-EN-CAHDD-Dual-Bay-EN-CAHDD2B-ZB/dp/B001HPDGFI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1252498516&sr=8-5