[nonhuman]

Does anyone have any recommendations for an external FireWire HD that's has good reliability? I used to think LaCie fit the bill, but I've been reading a lot of horror stories about them especially in regards to their Big Drive Extreme which is what I was looking at. Talking to their sales people has failed to inspire confidence. My own experience would caution me away from Maxtor, as well as pretty much all the BYO options I've tried. I want something around the 300 GB range.

[xGrape]

I was about to post my own similiar thread, so I'll just add myself to this one

I'm currently using a Seagate drive, mounted in some cheap Taiwanese enclosure, based on the 8052 chipset. It's really unstable, and I can't boot from it. So, I'm looking for something new, something quality.

The options I have considered are one from Maxtor, one from WD, and a last one from Seagate - all in the 250-300 GB range. Anyone have experience with any of these? Good or bad? Are any of them based on a proper chipset (911)?

[ixus_123]

I wish I could. I have a divco firewire drive. IT killed my first external hard drive by getting too hot. It has a fan but this was so noisey I couldn't here teh sounds of my harddrive literally griding to a halt.

I still use it with my iBook but it's hardlt portable now - I have the case open, hard drive exposed to get air & keep it cool. It will lock up everything now & again for no obvious reason, needed a forced restart of my iBook

[mcsjgs]

OWC (Other World Computing) Mercury drives here:

http://www.macsales.com/

Extremely pleased with performance/price/and lack of firewire hiccups in Panther. Techs are nice and very knowledgeable.

[Macola]

Originally posted by mcsjgs:
OWC (Other World Computing) Mercury drives here:

http://www.macsales.com/

Extremely pleased with performance/price/and lack of firewire hiccups in Panther. Techs are nice and very knowledgeable.

Ditto--you can buy their enclosures and build your own.

[brickcam]

OWC is highly respected, but more expensive than some other options. I use a Macally enclosure and a Seagate drive -- a BYO setup -- and is expense is a concern, there is no reason to buy these two components bundled together. They are a cinch to assemble and much money is saved. Besides, getting to choose both, customized to your concerns, is obviously best. Seagate has a superior warranty (5 years) and good rapport with its clients.

[Spliff]

I bought an EZQuest Cobra 120 GB (7200 RPM) external Firewire drive. The thing has been rock-solid steady. It never flinched after applying various Panther updates, unlike LaCie drives.

http://www.ezq.com/

Cobra Firewire drive

[Hi I'm Ben]

Only externals I've used were HD + External Enclosure. It makes the most sense. Pick your favorite regular HD stick it in a case and you're good to go.

That being said. I hate OWC.

Sold me a defective processor for my Cube... I asked to return it, sure for a 15% restocking fee. They said they could exchange it for me for free though. That's fine but it was ON BACKORDER and had no clue when they'd actually get more.