[wee_ag]

I'm finally converting to a Mac (let the world rejoice!) I'm getting the PowerMac 2.0 and I want to harvest as many parts of my PC as possible... I've got a 160 GB PATA internal HD that I would like to add to the new mac and I know I can't add it internally so was wondering about making it into an external HD. I've done some searching but am not finding the info I'm looking for.

First, do they sell these and what would be a good one to get? Also, it will be used for storing photos and music, will the PATA interface be a hinderance to viewing thumbs of the images and working with them in Photoshop or for listening to music (at the same time). Or would it just be best as a backup and not work with files from it.


Any further thoughts (especially those who have done this) would be great.... and here's the specs for the HD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144203

Thanks!!

[mduell]

Your PATA drive will work fine, there's not much of a difference between PATA and SATA drives in external enclosures since the FW bridge/bus is slower than either.

You can get a Firewire 400 enclosure for about $40 or a Firewire 800 enclosure for about $90. FW400 can give you 30-40MBps while FW800 can give you 60-90MBps; your 160GB drive can push about 50-60MBps.

[wee_ag]

Cool, I thought I read somewhere that the only advantage to getting the 800 was if you wanted to daisychain multiple drives and that you won't see a speed increas. I'm guessing this isn't true?

[mduell]

You can daisy chain Firewire 400. The difference in performance between FW400 and FW800 is real.

[wee_ag]

Great - thanks for the info.