[brickcam]

Hello,

I've been researching external firewire enclosures for a drive I'm putting together -- having learned here in the forums that constructing one's own is far cheaper -- and I'm halfway there. I bought a 160 GB Seagate hd, 7200 rpm, 8 mb cache, 5 yr warranty, for a lovely price after rebate.

I'm looking specifically for an enclosure that is quiet because I power it up to listen to my music collection. My current enclosure sounds like a wind tunnel. I notice that some enclosures have fans and others do not; doesn't seem integral, and certainly makes more noise. Here are the finishers so far:

OWC Mercury Elite $68

Macally Aluminum $37

Coolmax Aluminum ~$45

The Coolmax has a fan. The OWC is expensive. Has anyone used the Macally? How loud/quiet is it? Speed and aesthetics are not primary concerns given my needs. I'm most interested in functionality and quiet.

Thanks for your time, and your advice.

[SSharon]

I have the coolamx enclosure and it has always been silent for me. There is no fan, it came with a nice firewire (and usb2) cable, and it doesn't get too hot even after large file transfers. I don't see why you should get one with a fan because I also have a plastic enclosure that works just as well. The only noise I hear is the disk spinning up, but you will hear that with any enclosure you choose.

[anti-sleep]

I've got the Macally and it's been great. You can here a slight hum, very similar to a Powerbook's fan on the lowest speed. I have an iMac G5, and I can't hear the Macally at all if the G5 is on. I am very happy with my decision to buy the drive, but you will need to install drivers for it to work on 10.3.6. It seems Apple screwed something up in this update.

[gperks]

I have an OWC Mercury Elite. It works well. There is a slight high-pitched whine but that's the HD I expect - a Toshiba that I bought with it.

It's more expensive but then it supports Firewire 800 (two FW800 ports, one FW400) and the others are only FW400. If you're just streaming music that's no big deal.

FYI the specs often list "1394a" or "1394b". 1394a is FW400, 1394b is FW800.

[brickcam]

Thanks for the good posts so far.

Yeah, I forgot to specify that 1394a is what I'm looking for. That's plenty fast for my needs. My gf has a OWC enclosure that is pretty, quiet, and reliable, I just shy away from the price increase from, for example, the Macally. Given the positive review above the OWC doesn't seem like it's 200% as good.

My mistake with the Coolmax fan, then -- I read on a retailer's website that it had a fan. If you are correct then they must be mistaken.

in sum I'd love to buy the (slightly faster) OWC but on my annual salary the Macally appears fully functional. Unless anyone has any more info.

cheers,

[SSharon]

Coolmax makes a bunch of similar looking cases. I know that their 5.25" enclosures have fans and maybe some of the 3.5" ones do too, but mine certainly does not. I bought mine from newegg and although it looked similar to the picture it was not exactly the same.

[brickcam]

aha. The old switcheroo. thanks for the additional info.

[Krusty]

Check out the Triumph Venus enclosure that it going for a mere $30 at PC Micro right now. http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDeta...x?q=p:10501223 Looks sweet, made of aluminum, and has a "screwless" install procedure.

[t500]

I picked up the same case from Comp usa for 30 bucks. It sits on top of my G5. It gets hot when I do alot of transfers. But its nice, very slim design. I disconnected the lights...

[paul@pth.com]

I looked at a ton of different FW enclosures and ended up getting the Mercury Elite even though its one of the most expensive enclosures one out there.

It basically came to two main points, its nicely stackable and its the only one I didn't think looked horrible.

The only enclosure I think I'd rather have is the Lacie D2s but they don't sell them sans HD. Though I did spend the $ to get the D2 CD-RW enclosure that I plan to yank out the CD-RW and stick in a Pioneer 108 (the one with the nice face plate, not the ugly OEM one).

I guess I ended up coming to the conclusion that if the performance is the same I don't mind spending a few extra bucks to get something that looks nice.

[brickcam]

Is the Venus quiet though? That's my primary concern. I'd probably disconnect any flashing lights, too. I assume that's a pretty straight forward job.

[chris v]

The Macally does not have a fan, so all the noise you'll hear will be whatever HD noise leaks out of the thing. If you've got a reasonably quiet drive, you'll hardly notice it. I've got a WD Caviar 120 in one, and can't hear it at all from 3 or 4 feet away.

[brickcam]

Thanks everyone for your help. I bought the Macally from Newegg for ~42$ after shipping.

[waffffffle]

I have a generic FW 3.5" external drive that I bought on Pricewatch (250 GB for $204 earlier this summer). The fan in the case was really annoying me so I took it out. I hope it doesn't do any damage to the drive, but I don't know for sure.

[brickcam]

I'm going to assume that any damage would be directly related to how hot the drive gets... so where you have it environment-wise and how much you use it are probably the issues at hand. My old ext drive was purchased for cheap on a link from pricewatch as well, a big case that handles 5.25" as well as 3.5" and is ridiculously noisy.

[brickcam]

I assembled the drive with ease and hooked it up. However, it refused to mount.

Note: this Macally enclosure will not mount on 10.3.6... apparently the OS update broke something. You can get a firmware update from the Macally website and fix the problem -- but you can't do it from your 10.3.6 machine. I had to go find a friend still running 10.3.5.

That said, it's silent from a few feet away, slick-looking imho, and is plenty fast. No power switch though.

It doesn't seem to spin down, even when unmounted or even unplugged from the computer... is this controlled by the hd or the enclosure, anyone know?

[CrusaderSean]

slightly off topic, but is there a SATA to firewire external enclosure? I only have SATA hard drives in my desktop that I would like to convert one of them to external drive.

[ASIMO]

Originally posted by brickcam:
I assembled the drive with ease and hooked it up. However, it refused to mount.

Note: this Macally enclosure will not mount on 10.3.6... apparently the OS update broke something. You can get a firmware update from the Macally website and fix the problem -- but you can't do it from your 10.3.6 machine. I had to go find a friend still running 10.3.5.

That said, it's silent from a few feet away, slick-looking imho, and is plenty fast. No power switch though.

It doesn't seem to spin down, even when unmounted or even unplugged from the computer... is this controlled by the hd or the enclosure, anyone know?

Your MacAlly does not have a power switch? Mine does, I think. I received it earlier in the week and installed the hd and ran into the same firmware issue which I will resolve this weekend. At any rate, I could swear there is a small switch just by the power line and USB port; I remember turning the thing on and off numerous times trying to figure our why the hd would not mount.

As for the hd spin down, I think it depends on the enclosure. I have a 2.5" hd enclosure that spins down and the ipod spins down, too.

[brickcam]

Negatory on the power switch. It's alright, I bought a switched extension cord and I use that.

[AC Rempt]

I love the Macally enclosure and wanna thank y'all for mentioning it. I bought it off of NewEgg, and right now, it's my quiet little backup drive. My only complain is the enormous power cord, but the case looks good with my G5 and better, is pretty durn quiet.

[brickcam]

Sweet. I like mine too.