[Maflynn]

I'm in the market for a firewire drive

I'm at a loss as to what is a good quality mfg.

I want firewire 800, I need 400Gig (300 minimum).

Being quiet would be a plus.

I saw this in the lastest macworld magazine G-Raid
It looks cool and will match my G5, but I don't need a raid setup and the price seems a little expensive 400 dollars for a 320gig drive. While the appearance is important, I think price, performance and quality are more so.

Any advice?

Thanks
Mike

[wataru]

Firewire 800 is a waste of money, since most drives can't even saturate regular Firewire. I suggest you make your own. Buy an IDE drive and a case, and put them together. That'll save you some money. The largest drives I've ever seen are 320GB.

[zigzag]

There are a hundred threads about this. If you want to save money, buy bare IDE drives on sale and put them in enclosures. You can probably get two 200 drives cheaper than one 400 GB drive.

G5s appear to have poor FW 800 performance: www.barefeats.com

[Maflynn]

Well thanks, but I don't want a bare drive, but recommendations as to what brand to purchase.

I was unaware that firewire 800 is wasted bandwidth - thanks.

Any recommendations to what models are good

Thanks in advance.
Mike

[zigzag]

I would tell you to look at www.lacie.com , www.wiebetech.com , and www.macsales.com , but only because I know those makes. There might be other good ones. But if you think $400 is expensive for a ready-made 320 GB FW 800 drive, then you're not going to have much luck - that's how much they cost. That's why I recommended rolling your own.

[Rev-O]

Prefabbed external fw 800 drives are spendy, there's just no way around it.
LaCie has a 500 gb for $500. Not bad, I guess, when you consider Hitachi's 400 gb sata internal runs around $400.
LaCie also has a 1 tb for $1000.
So it looks like the prefabbed ballpark for fw 800 drives is about a buck a gig. The smaller the drive is, the fewer gigs per dinero, because you're paying for the enclosure ('natch).
As stated by Zigzag, it'll be cheaper to roll your own, but even then it's not going to be a massive differnece in price. There are some nice looking enclosures out there, and some truely ass ugly ones.
I was too lazy to make my own and impulse purchased a 250 gb Lacie fw 800 drive. It's quiet, aluminum (cast tho, so the finish doesn't exactly match a G5), and has a big fancy blue light.

[angelmb]

take a look at the Miglia Dual Disk:

High Speed FireWire 800 Storage
Using two hard drives simultaneously to read and write data gives DualDisk an incredible performance edge.

Robust, ultra-slim aluminium case
Barely higher than a standard 3.5” hard drives, DualDisk units can be easily stacked.

Quiet and efficient DCS™ cooling system
Combining passive and active cooling, DCS™ guarantees low drive temperatures even under an intense workload.

Generous storage capacities
Available in several configurations ranging from 320 GB to 500 GB, DualDisk™ is ideal for video or audio capture.

Bootable
DualDisk is fully bootable on any system that supports booting on a FireWire volume. No additional software or hardware required!d a FireWire 400 or 800 connectivity.

http://www.miglia.com/products/stora...isk/index.html

[Maflynn]

I'll start looking at those.

I wasn't sure if 400 was to high or not but it looks like its right about there. I'm liking the Lacie drive so far but I'll keep looking.

Thanks
Mike

[wataru]

There's no reason not to assemble it yourself, unless you're incredibly clumsy or just lazy. It's ridiculously easy and much cheaper to just slap the drive in a case and call it a day.

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by wataru:
There's no reason not to assemble it yourself, unless you're incredibly clumsy or just lazy. It's ridiculously easy and much cheaper to just slap the drive in a case and call it a day.

I know its easy and I may go that route. For the record, I used to build and repair PCs so its well within my abilities.

To be honest, I'm very busy and if I can get a unit without taking the time to put it together I may do that.

Mike

[MilkmanDan]

Mine took me 5 minutes to put together. Saved me a bunch of $ also.

http://www.newegg.com for a case, http://www.dealmac.com for a HD.

[jamesa]

the advantage of going with a manufacturer is you get a warranty. depending on your credit card whatever they offer may be doubled automatically.

warranty has saved me twice - once my own fault (though didn't tell them that ), once the drive's fault.

-- james

[Maflynn]

I went with the Lacie 250gb Drive, small, no fan, and fast. 7200 rpm with an 8mb cache.
I know I could have put one together, but ease of setup was my goal. You can't get much easier then plugging and running.

Mike