Please sound off on WD Caviar drives for external backup

I believe I've decided on an OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro enclosure, and either a WD Caviar Green or Black as an external storage/backup drive.

IF all else is equal, I think the lower power consumption and heat/noise from the Green would sway me in that direction, though the 5 year warranty on the Black is compelling as well.

So, IS all else equal between these two drives for the task of general file storage and backups?

In a more general sense, what's the benefit of an enclosure like the one I selected vs. a bus powered 2.5" enclosure such as the Elite AL Pro Mini, other than the obvious size/speed of the drive?

Silverado said:

I believe I've decided on an OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro enclosure, and either a WD Caviar Green or Black as an external storage/backup drive.

IF all else is equal, I think the lower power consumption and heat/noise from the Green would sway me in that direction, though the 5 year warranty on the Black is compelling as well.

So, IS all else equal between these two drives for the task of general file storage and backups?

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All else is not equal. Here's the specs for a Green vs a Caviar @ 2TB with 64 MB buffer:

WD Caviar Green 2 TB SATA Hard Drives ( WD20EARS)
WD Caviar Black 2 TB SATA Hard Drives ( WD2002FAEX)

The Caviar supports double the "potential" transfer rates, though to be honest, you'd not likely experience it anyway. The problem you may run into though is that OWC says to only use 7200 rpm drives. The specs for the Greens don't flat out say what rpm they run at. The "IntelliPower" feature might let them max out at that, but it appears to be a variable speed. It might be best to ask OWC directly about those drives, but offhand I'd say not to use the Greens.

In a more general sense, what's the benefit of an enclosure like the one I selected vs. a bus powered 2.5" enclosure such as the Elite AL Pro Mini, other than the obvious size/speed of the drive?

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The benefit is increased portability and lack of a need for a separate power cable.

Is there a major drawback to a bus-powered system, other than the smaller capacities of the 2.5" drives?

Silverado said:

Is there a major drawback to a bus-powered system, other than the smaller capacities of the 2.5" drives?

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Probably their transfer rates are a fair bit slower.