Do we need these anymore?

Before I get into this, I have an external hard drive enclosure, and it did come in handy. But over time the main purpose of getting one of these is slipping away. It used to be cheaper to "roll your own" external hard drive by buying one of these and the drive. Now, though, I see external drives on sale for prices that are the same if not lower than the price of a drive and a decent enclosure. It fits a need, but I think that need is becoming more niche as the external drive prices drop more and more.

Is there a fan in this?

Does this unit have a fan? Does the cooling seem adequate in general?

I'm using a Macally aluminum enclosure now which has no fan and gets quite warm. The drive hasn't failed yet at least, so maybe the aluminum conducts enough heat away to keep the drive happy.

Too bad about the lack of Firewire. It would be more attractive to the growing Mac user base with that interface.

yes

Some of us invested alot on p-ata ide hd's that are large, alot of people going laptop can find this very usefull, and not dump the drive or let it rot in a non used desktop case... I've got a couple 250's that could use the cooling alone with a laptop as long as the upnp works fine without reformats...