# Really large hard drives and external enclosures

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-large-hard-drives-and-external-enclosures/281192>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 22, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-large-hard-drives-and-external-enclosures/281192 "2004-12-22T18:38:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-large-hard-drives-and-external-enclosures/281192/1 "2004-12-22T18:38:37Z")

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I’m looking to buy or build an external hard drive for my PC, primarily to use as a backup device.

Right now, a national computer retailer has the new Seagate 7200.8 400 GB drive on sale for $199. Insanely cheap.

To make one of these an external drive, it’s just add an enclosure with a Firewire interface, and off I go? Maybe. Some of the enclosures I’ve seen appear to have a 200 GB limit on drive size. Some say they support 200+, some say 300+. Haven’t seen any yet that specifically say they’ll support 400 GB.

What’s the deal with drive size limitations on these things, and other than buying a nice looking one that says 200+, 300+ or whatever and hoping it works, how can I know for sure that any given enclosure will handle that 400 GB drive?