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jorgem4 · 07:32 PM

Hi,

I am getting into doing a lot of video editing and other video crap on my PB, and I am going to run out of HD spance soon, so I am considering buying an external HD, but I don't know really which one would be a good buy. I started on the apple store looking at the LaCie HDs and they look good but I don't know if the price is correct for those items (since apple tend to run their prices a bit high sometimes)

Any recomendations on brands a place to buy them from would be great, also I only have Firewire 400...is that an inconvinece? Does it run to slow? Will any Firewire External HD work with my Mac?

Thanks for any recomendations

Captain Obvious · Jun 1, 2004, 08:07 PM

Make your own.
It will be cheaper to buy a 7200RPM hard drive and a firewire/USB2 combo enclosure.

zigzag · Jun 2, 2004, 10:22 PM

I've used FW 400 for Digital Video and had no problems. FW 800 is said to be about 50-60% faster, but you probably don't need it. And yes, any FW drive should work with your Mac, although people have reported occasional problems. Look for 7200 RPM drives with 8 MB buffers.

I've always bought drives and enclosures separately. Until recently it's been much cheaper, and when you want to upgrade you can just put new drives in the old enclosures (it's easy to do). The cheapest drives are the weekly specials offered by CompUSA, Best Buy, etc. - you can track them here: www.dealmac.com . If you keep your eyes open you shouldn't have to pay more than 50-60 cents per GB. The best regular prices are at www.newegg.com

There are cheaper enclosures out there but I like these: http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...em=OWCMEFWU2A6 . They have an on-off switch (you still have to unmount the drive first, but if you want to power it down or have to force it, a switch is easier to deal with than a power cord), nice feet, and are nice-looking in a utilitarian sort of way (with a nice blue light). wiebetech.com also makes good enclosures. For another $40 you can get FW 800.

That said, ready-made FW drives from Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate and LaCie are getting cheaper by the week, sometimes as cheap as a kit. If you see a good deal on one you might want to go for it.

nate_02 · Jun 2, 2004, 10:35 PM

I like the one I built with the case from OWC

Originally posted by Captain Obvious:
Make your own.
It will be cheaper to buy a 7200RPM hard drive and a firewire/USB2 combo enclosure.

jorgem4 · Jun 4, 2004, 10:58 AM

Originally posted by zigzag:
I've used FW 400 for Digital Video and had no problems. FW 800 is said to be about 50-60% faster, but you probably don't need it. And yes, any FW drive should work with your Mac, although people have reported occasional problems. Look for 7200 RPM drives with 8 MB buffers.

I've always bought drives and enclosures separately. Until recently it's been much cheaper, and when you want to upgrade you can just put new drives in the old enclosures (it's easy to do). The cheapest drives are the weekly specials offered by CompUSA, Best Buy, etc. - you can track them here: www.dealmac.com . If you keep your eyes open you shouldn't have to pay more than 50-60 cents per GB. The best regular prices are at www.newegg.com

There are cheaper enclosures out there but I like these: http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...em=OWCMEFWU2A6 . They have an on-off switch (you still have to unmount the drive first, but if you want to power it down or have to force it, a switch is easier to deal with than a power cord), nice feet, and are nice-looking in a utilitarian sort of way (with a nice blue light). wiebetech.com also makes good enclosures. For another $40 you can get FW 800.

That said, ready-made FW drives from Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate and LaCie are getting cheaper by the week, sometimes as cheap as a kit. If you see a good deal on one you might want to go for it.

Thanks for the info...the case looks cool and I kind da like the idea of building my own...it does not look very hard form the instructions on the OWC website...I will look into both making my own or ready-made and which ever is cheaper I will go for.

Stupid question though; the ready-made say htey have a buffer of 2 or 8 mb...if I build my own that feature will be determined by the case or the actual HD I put in it...again I am a low tech boy.

and againg...any HD will work with the case right?

Thanks again.

diskgolfking · Jun 4, 2004, 11:33 AM

I just bought an IOGear FW/USB2 model from Buy.com for $65. It's working very well so far (it even has a switch and a cool blue light - plus it matches my AlPB color)

zigzag · Jun 4, 2004, 09:55 PM

Originally posted by jorgem4:
Thanks for the info...the case looks cool and I kind da like the idea of building my own...it does not look very hard form the instructions on the OWC website...I will look into both making my own or ready-made and which ever is cheaper I will go for.

Stupid question though; the ready-made say htey have a buffer of 2 or 8 mb...if I build my own that feature will be determined by the case or the actual HD I put in it...again I am a low tech boy.

and againg...any HD will work with the case right?

Thanks again.

The drive determines the buffer/cache. 2 MB is fine for most purposes but 8 is better.

Any 3.5" ATA drive (Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi) up to 500 GB should work in any new 3.5" enclosure (some older enclosures were limited to 128 GB). However, don't try to install a serial ATA (or SATA) drive - just a regular ATA.

rozwado1 · Jul 17, 2004, 10:53 AM

Check out this family of External cases. They look very G5-ish.

Pleiades
Only available through Australia and HK right now.

palmberg · Jul 23, 2004, 04:20 PM

How important is a fan in these cases? I'm looking at this:

http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDeta...501783;c:36116

But alas, no fan. A big deal?

Rev-O · Jul 23, 2004, 08:39 PM

I've been thinking of getting a 2.5" enclosure for my iBook. Upside is it fits in a laptop carrying case and bus powered. Be nifty to have a nice portable HD to go with a nice portable computer. Downside is small and more costly hard drives (at least on a $ to GB basis) and I'm sure bus powered eats battery life like crazy.

Side note: I have no experience in this, but from what most people say on these forums, FW 400 is real-world faster than USB 2.

f1000 · Jul 23, 2004, 09:15 PM

Originally posted by palmberg:
How important is a fan in these cases? I'm looking at this:

http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDeta...501783;c:36116

But alas, no fan. A big deal?

I put a Maxtor 200 GB hard drive in one of those ION enclosures, which lacks a fan. The drive developed the clack of death a few weeks ago after I had used it for only a few months. I NEVER had a hard drive crash on me before, and I hadn't so much as jostled it.

zigzag · 05:49 PM

Originally posted by palmberg:
How important is a fan in these cases? I'm looking at this:

http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDeta...501783;c:36116

But alas, no fan. A big deal?

Few of the newer single-drive enclosures use a fan. I think Granite Digital is the only one that uses a fan anymore. In terms of cooling, a fan is certainly better than no fan, but I haven't heard about any overheating problems, and a fan means extra noise. As I understand it, one reason fans used to be more common was that power supplies were incorporated into the enclosures, which made them run hotter (don't know if it's true, but I read it somewhere). The newer enclosures all seem to have external power supplies.

I use fanless OWC enclosures with no problems. Just keep the enclosure in a ventilated area and you should be fine. Mine sit on top of my G5.

TailsToo · Jul 24, 2004, 07:51 AM

Western Digital 250GB SE Drive