[Hippo]

I just don't see hauling around both an enclosure and an internal drive that was never intended to be portable in the first place

but that's exactly what all the portables and externals are, they're just molded shut, so you're paying for a non-reusable enclosure...

[Mongoose]

Yes, but it (arguably) looks cooler, is generally thinner, and if I've managed to fill up a terabyte's worth of data over the course of a few years, then shame on me.

[Liberator]

Eh?  The observed failure rate that I saw on the one-piece units when I was working in the computer shop a couple years ago was kinda gastly, combined with the fact that it takes a long time to extract the drive if/when the internal conversion circuitry fails.

[Thaeris]

I only use my drive for backup purposes. Thus, I only plug it in every once in a while. I prefer to have 2 of my 3 free USB ports (one has a mouse in most of the time) open rather than occupied.

[Nuke]

my enclosure actualy stays empty most of the time, comes in handy when all those $300 asus mobos self destruct, and i cant boot to get at my files.