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anothermacguy · Jan 4, 2001, 10:29 AM

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations on external high-capacity hard drives. Ideally, I would like to find a firewire drive 80MB+, which is somewhat affordable. Has anyone seen any good deals on the net?

MISHA: you said in another thread that you can buy an external firewire case for 100$, do you know of any sites I could browse through?

Have you found any cheap internal drives on the net?

Thanks in advance

[This message has been edited by anothermacguy (edited 01-04-2001).]

Paul S · Jan 4, 2001, 12:05 PM

The Maxtor 80GB FireWire is probably your best bet. It's the largest drive out there and is very inexpensive. I have seen it for as low as $379 on the web. Just do a search at www.cnet.com in the personal shopper section and you'll find the cheapest prices on the web.

If you look at the price for the internal Maxtor drive and a case, it's cheaper to buy the complete unit. That isn't the case with most other drives. If you do buy a case, look into the ADS Pyro. Also check out www.xlr8yourmac.com for info on them.

If performance is also an issue, the Maxtor is only 5400rpm. The IBM deskstar series is 7200rpm and goes up to 75GB. There are no FireWire versions from IBM so you'd have to buy the case. The drive alone will cost you over $500 so if you don't need the speed, save the money. I do think other companies sell that drive already in a case. I believe LaCie has one and also FireWireDirect.com. Those might be cheaper than the separate drive/case, but you'd have to look around to be sure.

giantmike · Jan 4, 2001, 01:08 PM

I reccomend spending that little extra money, and going for the speedier drive. I did some tests with 5400 RPM drives versus 7200 RPM dirves, and found that the 7200 RPM drives sped every single operation up by about 35%. That's a huge performance to price ratio, that is well worth it. I will never buy a 5400 RPM drive again.

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anothermacguy · Jan 4, 2001, 02:25 PM

Thanks for your help guys.

CoachSimp · Jan 11, 2001, 03:28 PM

After countless hours reading this forum and others i bought ibm 75 gig drive from outpost.com for 369 with no postage and overnight delivery. ADS Pro kit would make it about 520 for firewire drive, however i plan to make my current drive a kit firewire drive and put the ibm in my imac dvse. there is an authorized apple techician in my town so the applecare warranty wont be affected/effected i always forget which it is?

i bought and took back the maxtor 80 gig drive. it ran imovie2 too choppy. i could not view movies on my imac satisfactorily....i also could not import straight to drive. Fantom makes great Firewire devices and Westwood Computers and Networking is the place to buy them. www.wcn.com dont be upset with their terrible website just ask for sandy she is great.

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