Looking for an external drive

[lucasbuck]

I was looking at picking up one of the new 4tb external drives with USB 3. There's the Segate Expansion and WD My Book. My thoughts were:
- opinions on if one is better than the other
- I stream a lot to my xbox extender so I'm worried about speed
- I noticed that a bare drive like a 4tb Black is more money than the self contained My Book. Would I be better off (and get more years) out of a Black and just buy an external enclosure?

If that's the case, are there any good, reasonably priced 2 or 3 bay enclosures? I don't want raid and all that, just a USB 3 enclosure I could add drives to in the future.

Thanks for any help and advice!

[foxwood]

Streaming video doesn't come anywhere stressing a drive, even a USB attached drive - bear in mind that you can get USB tuners that are designed to put 4 streams at the same time over a USB2 connection.

You also don't need to pay the premium for a Black drive - real-time video streaming is not a high performance activity - you're only talking about 5 or 6GB per HOUR!

[Shackleford]

You don't need or want a 7200 rpm drive in an external usb enclosure its overkill and will only create extra noise and heat. Any simple external drive will work for streaming/recording.

[lucasbuck]

Thanks for the info. So would I be better off buying a stand alone external, or are there any 2-3 bay enclosures I can get? Most I have read the reviews on didn't get great ones, but those are mainly folks looking for raid and what not. I'd just be happy with one I could throw some drives in and be future proof with space.