Check out Wiebetech enclosures (www.wiebetech.com). They cost a little more but are certainly worth the money. I've had mine (three FW800s) for two years running and they work great. They are aluminum enclosures that do not have fans. At first I wasn't too thrilled with the concept and wondered if I'd have problems down the road. They've proven themselves. So far, so good, no problems.

Fans are nice but I've experienced 9 times out of 10 you're going to have issues before a drive ever gives out and the fans will either lock up or end up making a lot of noise due to failed bearings. For me, the less moving parts, the better. I haven't noticed any thermal related issues with my enclosures. I trust Wiebetech and if the aluminum enclosures didn't work there's no way they'd still be selling them 2 years later.

John

I have two ADS Pyro firewire enclosures, built-in fans, that work fine. ADS has a firewire 800 enclosure now, about 100 clams:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4032066
.

Couple of thoughts -
I've been doing external drives for years - when people would laugh at me, and insist it couldn't work. Now of course, external storage is the rule.
So let me ask a few questions and make a couple of suggestions.

1 - how much media do you grind through in a year?
I crunch dozens of hours, for a number of different clients. So I've been expounding the value of "seperate drives for each project or client", for a long time. Now if your stuff is strictly family based and you don't shoot more than twenty hours a year, stick with the enclosures.l If, on the other hand, you are shooting 20 to 40 hours a month, you might consider (from the same Weibetech as above), their Combo Docks which are simply enclosures - without the ENCLOSURE. Actually all they are - are little cable plug ends which attach into the end of your regular "cheapo" internal drives and then into a USB or Firewire card on your computer. For video Firewire is definitely best.
But...
having said that...
I've now switched to their SATA docks (same concept, different drives and protocols). These little units plug into the end of SATA drives, and for HDV stuff (and eventually everything), they are perfect. The cost of SATA drives has fallen within the same range as standard IDE drives and they are 3 to 4 times faster than standard Firewire or USB2. Hot pluggable, as well.
Simply the way to go in 2006.
Wnen I finish a job, I unplug the drive(s) and store them in little plastic "sandwich boxes" which I buy for a buck or so at the grocery store. We must have 40 or 50 of these on the shelves.
When a client comes back to do new stuff (the mainstay of my business - repeat clients), I pull their drive and add to it.
Just a suggestion of a way to work that - well - works!

v