[OmniX]

I have a PowerBook G4 and would like to get a large external FireWire drive. Anyone have suggestions as to what is the best products out there (and/or best-priced?)?

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

[nana2]

Granite Digital sells fast external Firewire enclosures. Just stick in your IDE device of choice and away you go.

[Euphrates]

I have a Western Digital firewire hard drive, and performance has been sketchy to say the least. It doesn't always seem to show up when I boot up the computer. Although I use a firewire PCI card, since my beige G3 didn't come with firewire, I would avoid WD if you can. Their tech support has dwindled since I got the product.

Good luck on your purchase BTW.

[PeteWK]

VST drives are a little pricey but very good. LaCie is nice and a little cheaper. If you're looking for the best size to dollar ratio, Maxtor is probably about the best out there. Although I've had two Maxtor drives die on me. So I tend to be gunshy about them.

PeteWK

[nana2]

Keep in mind that you won't get top performance from the Firewire port on the g4 powerbook, it's crap compared to the one in the latest iBook.

[OmniX]

"Keep in mind that you won't get top performance from the Firewire
port on the g4 powerbook, it's crap compared to the one in the latest
iBook. "


Yes, I've seen this elsewhere around the web about sub-par Titanium firewire performance; is there any technical explanation to this? Has Apple ever acknowledged this?

Back on topic, so far the best (best-priced at least) drive I've found is the Maxtor 80GB external FireWire drive from dirtcheapdrives.com for $350. It's a good price, but I've been unable to determine if this drive uses the new 30MB/sec Oxford 911 IDE/FW bridgechip, or the older 15MB/sec Ox900 chip.
Anyone have any experiences with this drive?


Also, another question: in general, are FireWire hard drives portable? I suppose to this there are two definitions: portable in the sense of being able to easily transport the drive from point A to point B; and portable in the sense of actually being able to use the drive on the go (which would I suppose preclude the operation of all but bus-powered drives, which I think are smaller and therefore more expensive then regular FW external drives.)

Sorry for the mouth-and-a-half-full, but again thanks for all your suggestions so far and in the future.

[zigzag]

www.barefeats.com has the best reports I've seen on external Firewire drives and enclosures. They've done comparisons of the new bridge designs. They're also the ones who discovered the sub-par Firewire performance of the Ti-Book, and they discuss the issue at length.

Firewire drives are certainly portable in the point A-to-B sense, although they come in different shapes and sizes. A pocket-sized drive will be both more expensive and slower. But they are also more likely to be bus-powered, if you require that.

[KidRed]

Any suggestions for small ex. FW drives for my iBook2?

Between-

EZ Quest
LaCie
VST

I need the fastest, smallest, reasonably priced bootable drive. Any suggestions?

[andymcdeee]

VST are pricks in my opinion. Sold me a dud a while back and they were useless in getting it replaced.

Have a TransIntl 60GB firewire now and I can tell you that it is AWESOME!!!

No software required to run so it'll boot on anyones computer instantly. Get 35MB/sec out of it all the time. Perfect for audio and video. Believe it or not. Not too bad in price either.

[milhaus]

On how to get a VST 20 Gig bus powered drive for less than $200US see: http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ulti...7&t=002729

[Cowdog]

Originally posted by andymcdeee:
<STRONG>VST are pricks in my opinion. Sold me a dud a while back and they were useless in getting it replaced.</STRONG>

I have two vsts, one thin and a full height. I disagree with the prick comment, my thin's firmware wouldn't update and I called them and they sent me a new drive, not that it was broken or dysfunctional the firmware just wouldn't update, I thought them replacing it was pretty cool. Course this was before smartdisk bought vst, maybe 1999.

Would definitely reccomeend the thin over the full height for a powerbook, besides looking really cool it's bus powered and all you need is the fw cable, the full height needs a power brick. Had brought them with me to visit my brother who has an ibook and it was definitely a pain plugging in the powercords vs the convenience of bus powered.

I liked vst not so happy smartdisk bought them but they are still good drives. Though probably gonna sell the full height, its cool that it's external an all but gonna have plenty of internal storage soon.

[Valentine]

Today's MacNN notes: FireWire Direct has begun shipping its SlimLine ULTRA II Series FireWire hard drives, which feature the 2nd generation Oxford 911, Ultra ATA/100 chipset. The new drives range from a 40GB HDD for $199 up to an 80GB, 7200RPM drive available for $359.  FirewireDirect will offer RAID configured ULTRA II drives starting at $469.

There is also a blurb about LaCie's announcement of firewire drives.

I agree with the comments about WD drives. I have a 20GB external and it is quirky.

[andymcdeee]

Guess the VST guys over here aren't as snappy as your lot. Still find them overpriced and slow. All personal opinion of course.

[milhaus]

Originally posted by andymcdeee:
<STRONG>Guess the VST guys over here aren't as snappy as your lot. Still find them overpriced and slow. All personal opinion of course.</STRONG>

Don't believe all the hype about the Oxford drives. Testing at www.barefeats.com shows that, in some systems, the chip has very little "real world" gains, although benchmarks come out quite a bit faster. This is not to say that I would buy a non-Oxford FW drive any more, but your comment about VST being slow (by this you mean the drive, not service?) is a bit off. The VST drives had been, prior to the new bridges, the consensus fastest drives around, and testing at Barefeats has shown it can still be faster, in some instances, than the new Oxford chipped bus-powered drives. Plus, you have to admit they look much cooler than most FW drives.

I also have a Lacie s2100 Oxford drive, which I got as a replacement for my older Lacie drive which had a problem with the bridge board and startups in 9.1 and X. The difference between the two in terms of benchmarks was huge, even with the so called "crippled" firewire on my Pismo (on the new iBook, it's even bigger). But in real world use, the difference is negligible.

[andymcdeee]

Sorry, I was actually referring to their service. Mind you, when I first got one I could burn data to a CD faster than the Firewire drive. And they really were useless in getting it replaced (eventually gave it back to the dealer and told him not to expect payment - that worked )

Cheers

[KidRed]

Valentine or anyone else-

Anyone have opinions or experience with FireWire Direct drives? They have a nice slim one but not a lot of specs-bootable, data thrupt etc.

[josntme]

OWC has a 3 gig 2.5 Portable VST drive for $90.00. This seems to be less expensive than a bare enclosure. Is this a good deal and can I put a larger HD in this enclosure later? http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...;Item=VST3GBFW

[Fredo]

KidRed: I have an EZQuest Cobra series external firewire hard drive, and am very satisfied with the product and EZQuest public service. The 30 GB model I have is not small and slim, 8.875x7x2.25 inch, but it is portable. Not bus powered, however, contains 50 watt power supply.
The hard drive has worked for over a year without problems. When I needed up to date extensions, a quick call or email to Dean in tech support and he'd email me the new ones. I copied them onto disk in case of need in future.
I have everything backed up to the ez plus a lot of extra movie and sound files that would overfill the internal HD of my DV SE 400. (12.8 GB). I leave it off and disconnected most of the time, and do not need to perform utility operations as much as the internal. (Speed Disk, etc.) It has worked flawlessly since I got it, I only wish I'd gotten a bigger one!
Model 30 GB, 12/14 MB/sec data transfer, 2 firewire ports, 7200 RPM, 50MB/sec cable transfer,2MB buffer, supports Mac OS 8.6 and up. http://www.ezq.com/

[ 08-03-2001: Message edited by: Fredo ]

[ 08-03-2001: Message edited by: Fredo ]