I want to set up some external hard drives.  I understand the best way
is with a hard drive case and then insert the hard drive into the
case. I am looking for either 4 @ 160g or 2 @ 400 g, whichever is most
reliable...I want to use hard drive info...many dvd movies... on pc
and lap top ( What is SATA ? ) What is best unit to get....I have seen
racks for sale.... I know that I need to match up ide or scsi....

I bought an external USB case (bytecc) and ripped it open and split
the IDE cable so I could have 2 hard drives running off the bus. Both
hard drives are 200GB 7200 (speed) Maxtor drives. So I ended up
spending around 220 dollars but increased my storage by 400GB. SATA is
Serial ATA which is faster than IDE but SATA drives are more
expensive. If you are just using the drives for storage, then get IDE
because you will save money. Buy one Brytech case, an IDE splitter, a
power splitter, and 2 Maxtor or Western Digital drives of the size you
want. That is the cheapest rig you can get for a laptop. It works
great too. Until your cat knocks over one of the hard drives and you
lose all your data.

This is what my rig looks like:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/bomber/external.jpg


Good deal on a hard drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144391

Western Digital and Maxtor are reliable. Search http://www.newegg.com
for the hard drive capacity you want and order 2 of them

Good deal on the case:
http://www.dealsonic.com/bytidetousb2.html

Where do I fine the USB case,,thye 'bytecc'?  What is an IDE splitter
and a power splitter.... Does that mean I feed both hard drives into a
single USB port...?  When you say ' using hard drive just for storage'
I am using them to hold dvd movies until I copy to media or play
direct on pc or laptop.
Thank you for your good information....

I also have an external USB Bytecc case. It is pretty sweet. I did the
same thing that elitebomber did and hook up 2 IDE hard drives to it.

The good thing about the 2 IDE hard drives hook up is that it actually
work and it work great.
The bad things about that is the USB Bytecc case is always open (it
get dusty, and you can't take it with you unless you work and put it
back to the way it was), you have to buy/create a 2 head IDE cable and
a hard drive power splitter, the two hds maybe place right on of each
other and it will create some heat.

If you like storage space, buy a computer tower case where the front
of the tower are places where you can put hard drives in. Buy like a
600 something watt power supply, buy 2 or 1 IDE(or raid) card (1 card
can hook up 4 hds), buy the the IDE wires and power splitter wires
(might need long ones), and buy the removable hd cases to hook it all
up on your tower.

The removable hd cases are internal and can be expensive. You put 1 hd
into 1 case and slide it into the front of the tower.

What's good about this is that you might have 8 or so hard drive in
the front of the tower, and if you have another hd that you need to
get data off of, just slide one of the removable case out and switch
the hds, slide it back in and grab your data. The bad thing about this
is, with all the "sliding" in and out of the cases, you much damage
IDE ends of the case.

Removable Case (internal):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817604003

Case (the front can be loaded with removable cases):
http://xoxide.com/thermaltake-armor-case-black.html

I agree with elitebomber that you should stick to IDE hds if you're
just going with storage since they are really cheap now.
I usually check out deals online that has cheap hd and Bytecc cases
with rebate or whatever if you like to save some money:
http://bensbargains.net
http://edealinfo.com

Answers to your questions:
1) USB case (Bytecc) commonly called external enclosures
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145314)
2) IDE splitter is just a normal IDE wire that has 1 head to the
motherboard, 1 head for a slave drive, and 1 more head for a master
drive. (to support 2 hds, the wire that come with the Bytecc has 1
head for the board and the other end to the hd (supporting only 1 hd).
3) Power splitter just a wire that split the power connector into 2
power connector (http://xoxide.com/4pinsplitter.html).
4) Holding dvd movies for storage is fine.

Have fun, my friend has 3 terabytes of space on his system now.

If you just want storage buy a dual-layer DVD burner and store movies
or whatever 9GB at a time for a $1 per DVD.

If you need mass storage at your fingertips, stick a couple hard
drives in your PC.  Of course depending on the motherboard's age, BIOS
version, and your OS you may encounter limits as to maximum drive
capacity. If your motherboard supports RAID, you can get mucho storage
as well as blazing speed.

SATA (Serial ATA 150)is the replacement for the older EIDE interface
whose last incarnation was the ATA-133 standard.  7200RPM hard drives
can't even sustain 100Mb/sec transfer rates, so SATA-150 only gains
you a little due to faster bursts of cached data.  SATA is more
impressive with 10,000RPM drives, and will really shine when the 15K
SATA drives come out.

If you need mobile storage (more than a 9GB DVD) an external case
would be the ticket.  They come in 3.5 and 5.25 flavors, the 3.5 being
much more convenient for toting around.  There are tons of
manufacturers, some decent ones on pricewatch for $19 (shipping
included).  You need to match it's internal interface, probably IDE or
SATA (SCSI aint worth it) to the external interface you'll connect to
your pc (or pc's).  Firewire B or USB 2.0 are the fastest choices, the
latter being the common way to go.

If instead of actually using the shock-protected housing to hold your
hard drive, you hang 2 drives and a mess of wires on your desktop,
you've pretty much done away with any portability.  I also question
how well regulated your voltages will be, or how long the cheesy
in-line power supply that comes with most external cases will last if
you are powering two drives, when the supply was intended to power
only one.

If you don't want to do this yourself, you can get an external drive
from a variety of different vendors. I've gone both routes and am
pleased with both solutions.

The advantages of going with a pre-packaged external drive: (1) you
don't need to do any of the work with the components - they are
plugnplay, (2) you get a drive, case, and potentially software that
was designed for the purpose you intend, (3) some of the drives
available have some nice features now. (For example, Western Digital
has a network-attachable external hard drive - you just plug it into
your network. And it can also act as a print server. They also have a
media center drive with a card reader and an extra USB port so that
the drive acts like a USB hub.) If you want to see your options in
this area, check out
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/index.asp?Cat=5&Language=en.

The advantages of doing it yourself: (1) you will generally pay a
little less for case+drive, (2) you have a greater range of hard drive
brands and sizes, and (3) you can do some nice customizations if you
like. (For example, I have an external 5.25" case that I bought from
NewEgg that I've installed a removable drive tray into. With a few
hard drives in caddies, I can move them between external enclosure to
other computers with hard drive trays easily. It also makes it easy to
use as an off-site backup.)

I do the same thing you want to do, I have 33 drive racks in my setup
,which is not full but if was it could hold 4500 + dvds on 500 gb
drives,I use firewire to ide bridge card (oxford 911 bridge card,and
ide removable drive cases)the cases have a key turn on button so I
only turn on the drives I want two watch being firewire they are hot
swapable.you can have either the master or the master and slave on at
one time, or all harddrives,you can not have the slave by itself on.1
card works 2 drives (master and slave,but each card is connected two
another card.
right now I have a picture of the front of my setup I can get you a
picture of wireing if this is what you want.
I see no way of inserting a picture into this reply,if you no of a way
to get you the picture or were I can post it let me no and i will.
This is the best way I have found to have your collection at your finger tips.