[reemas]

Lacie Triple Interface:

160GB - $188

200GB - $238

250GB - $265

are any of these a good price? these prices are after tax and shipping. basically, the final cost.

thanks.

[Luca Rescigno]

You can save $60-$80 if you put the drive together yourself. Go to NewEgg.com and look for "External Enclosures" (under the Cases category) and also look at hard drives. A USB + Firewire case will go for about $40-$50, while a 160 GB hard drive costs about $90. So, the final prices if you buy the components separately are:

160 GB - $130
200 GB - $160
250 GB - $200

And these will vary by about $10 in either direction, but that's generally what it'll cost. The LaCie enclosure is very nice, but I don't think it's worth so much extra. Also, while the LaCie has Firewire 800 and the ones at NewEgg don't, Firewire 800 isn't going to help unless you have multiple drives on the same bus. May as well stick with Firewire 400.

[reemas]

Firewire 800 isn't going to help unless you have multiple drives on the same bus. May as well stick with Firewire 400.

why is that?

[Luca Rescigno]

You might want to go with the LaCie drives anyway if you really want Firewire 800. I've heard mixed reports - most people say that there's no difference between FW400 and FW800, and some say that there is a very small difference, but I don't think there's enough of a benefit to justify spending over twice as much for a FW800 enclosure. At NewEgg, the cheapest one available with FW800 was $85. So it's up to you really.

I don't think you'll notice the difference unless you're using the drive for something that is very disk-intensive. If you're using it as a scratch disk for video editing, get the FW800, but if you just want to store some extra files, save your money.

[reemas]

Ahh thanks for the clarification. I was planning on using it as a scratch disk for video editing primarily.

However, the only thing that bothers me is that interal HD's have warranty's that go up to 5 years.

External drives have warrantys that go up to a year! Bummer.

any ideas why?

[Luca Rescigno]

Maybe they assume that if it's an external drive, it could get moved around a lot more than an internal drive (which will stay inside an immobile desktop for most of its life). Also, external drives will be turned on and off pretty often compared to internal ones.

You'll still save money if you buy a FW800 enclosure and separate drive. If you look at NewEgg's listing of drives, Seagate has a five year warranty standard on ALL their drives. Many only have 1-3 years, and some are longer only if you buy the much more expensive retail kit (rather than just the OEM bare drive).

So, if you get a FW800 case from NewEgg for $90 or so, you'll still save a little money compared to the LaCie, and you can also buy a separate hard drive that comes with a five-year warranty. I think it would be worth it.

[reemas]

ok i think im going to do what ive heard the most: buy a seperate enclosure and hd. i'm looking at seagate already for the 5 year warranty.

as for the enclosure, factors like power, chipset and size issues are confusing. is there a compatability factor for the case and the hd? do i need to buy a specific power case?

and can anyone say if this case is good:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...351&depa=0

thanks all!

[Jake_11]

putting together your own external is the best way to go. for the external case, the most important things are to make sure it has the same interface as the harddrive you buy, IDE or SATA. As far as the Firewire, firewire 800, or USB2.0, it doesn't really matter. even if you buy the fastest SATA drive currently available, it is only rated at maximum of 150MB per second, whay below that of standard firewire.

I have an external enclosure from coolmax and a samsung 160GB hardrive that works great with my iMac. total setup cost less than 115.00

[reemas]

so even the fastest sata wont go as fast as firewire 800?

is there even a point to firewire 800 then if the hard drive isn't as fast?

[Luca Rescigno]

No no no. Firewire is 400 megabits per second. FW800 is 800 megabits per second. Those translate to 50 and 100 megabytes per second. SATA is 150 megabytes per second. Most parallel ATA (PATA) hard drives are rated for either 100 or 133 megabytes per second.

But most hard drives do not even come close to maxing out their bus. For general use, a 50 megabyte per second FW400 enclosure should be more than enough. FW800 for a single drive is generally overkill unless you really need a lot of performance. FW800 is also good if you want to have multiple daisy-chained drives on a single FW800 bus - with FW400, having more than one daisy-chained hard drive could decrease the speed a lot, so FW800's extra bandwidth goes a long way toward maintaining plenty of speed even with multiple hard drives on the bus.

[Jake_11]

I made a typo in my first reply and forgot to mention that the drives may be rated at 100, 133, 150MBps, none of the hard drives actually achieve those speeds. the Western Digital Raptor is the fastest SATA hard drive available which has burst rates in the low 70MBps. this would make it faster than firewire 400, but it's average read/write speeds is 63.3MBps according to tomshardware reiview of the drive. this would make the fastest hard drive slightly faster than firewire 400, but slower than usb 2.0. Firewire 800 makes sense if you have multiple firewire devices connected to you computer that you plan on using at the same time. If not the extra money for a WD Raptor and firewire 800 enclosure probably isn't worth it.

before make a decision, you may want to check out this review firewire 800 tomshardware review