Anyone here tried to use Antec MX-1 and SATA hard drive as external storage for 722?

[airtv]

I read great reviews about the Antec MX-1 External Enclosure. It's actively cooled with a 40mm fan and quiet. It has a USB and eSATA interface. It's around $60 with shipping, I missed a great deal on it last month after MIR. I'll watch out for another deal.
I was thinking that I'd be better of to get this enclosure and I'd have the option of interchanging 500GB internal SATA hard drives as needed, whether for drive failure or just archiving. 500GB drives seem to give the most bang for the buck these days, good deals can be had for about $85 for a good drive.
I'll probably be getting a Western Digital drive. I read in another forum that Seagate drive quality is really suffering since the Maxtor merge. In that same thread I read that Seagate's 7200.10 series runs loud and hot and has buggy firmware. And the 7200.11 series runs much better but has a high failure rate. Since WD is willing to compete price-wise while still maintaining quality drive production, it seems that WD is the way to go.

Does anyone have any practical experience with the above mentioned equipment? Or any helpful advice? My ViP722 is running out of storage quick. I haven't made my own external HD before, I'm just going by the stuff that I've read and trying to make a wise decision before I buy.

 

[KAB]

$60 is a lot of money for an enclosure. I have two Conus W-series (about $27) that have worked great. Check Newegg or Eaglebit. As far as WD Hard Drives, be sure to get the AAKS series. They are also cool running, no need for a fan enclosure. Several others in this forum are using this combo.

 

[airtv]

Well, yesterday after posting, I found the MX-1 at Frys for $30 and pulled the triggger. I figured, if I wait, they'd be out of stock by the time I did my normal obsessive amount of research.

If the WD AAKS series is particularly reliable, I'll shop for that.
Thanks.

 

[8bitbytes]

I'm using three StarTech InfoSafe enclosures, two are IDE and one is SATA. All three have Seagate DB35 video drives. I've never had one problem.

 

[airtv]

It's not that I want to jump on a Seagate bashing bandwagon. But, from what I've been reading lately about hard drives, WD is the way to go. I'm not a gambling man, I'll just go with the herd on this one.

I ordered the Antec MX-1 for $30 + sh from Frys this weekend. Mostly great reviews.
Yesterday, I ordered a WD Caviar WD6400AAKS from Directron.com for $100 + free shipping as a first time buyer. Everyone seems to love this drive.

I hope this is just an easy plug and play situation where all the components play nice together.

 

[airtv]

I just installed the WD 640GB hard drive in the MX-1. Called to activate the feature on my 722. It formatted to 595GB. And recorded stuff is transfering as I type. Easy.