[markw10]

I am looking for a enclosure for a 2.5" SATA preferably Hard Drive. In the past I've always used the Lacie Rugged Hard Drives but to save money I decided this time to buy my own hard drive and case and then I will upgrade it and hopefully save money in the future going this route. I am interested in getting the 500GB Hitachi Travelstar 5K500 which is SATA. I'm using this with a Mac Pro but for being futureproof I want USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800. I'll be doing backups to it using SuperDuper. I want the small size since it's store in a safe and space is limited so desktop size hard drives are out. Any suggestions of a good rugged enclosure that will work well on the Mac?

[Big Mac]

It's going to be difficult to find anything other than USB and eSATA in a 2.5" enclosure.

[mduell]

1394b and SATA aren't a very popular combination for 2.5" enclosures for a variety of reasons.

OWC has one for $90. FW Depot has one for $120.

[Kenneth]

miniXpress825 S offers F800, F400, eSATA, and USB 2.0. I got the miniXpress825 and not bad at all.

[cdetdi]

For me, the OWC is the only way to go. I've had one for a year and have had zero problems. Plus it comes with 800-800, 800-400, USB and an AC/DC adapter, that most 2.5 USB HDs do not include.

Not only are the products fantastic quality and has great reputation for reliability, macsales.com is very active with their support and are a great resource to the Apple world.

[Nergol]

I don't know how "futureproof" FireWire 800 will be. It's faster, but to say that it hasn't found very widespread adoption would be something of an understatement. FW800 may end up in that great grooveyard of forgotten formats that were really cool, but just never went anywhere. And trust me - I say that as someone who still has a sizable collection of SVHS tapes, laserdiscs, and SACDs.

I myself have a MacAlly PHR-250CC, which has USB and FireWire 400, and encloses a PATA 2.5"drive. It even still fits in the very nice case I got with my previous hard drive enclosure, a Vantec NEXSTAR.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Nergol 

I don't know how "futureproof" FireWire 800 will be. It's faster, but to say that it hasn't found very widespread adoption would be something of an understatement. FW800 may end up in that great grooveyard of forgotten formats that were really cool, but just never went anywhere. And trust me - I say that as someone who still has a sizable collection of SVHS tapes, laserdiscs, and SACDs.

The reason it never went anywhere was because Apple thought it was a high-end feature for some reason and never included it in any but their most expensive machines. As a result, it's a high-end feature that no one uses. :/ I wouldn't say it's any less future-proof than FW400, though, since FW800 drives can connect to a FW400 port without any trouble at all. And if you've got a FW800-capable machine, you will notice the benefits over FW400.

At any rate, the OWC enclosure also has USB 2.0 ports on it, so you'll never be in a situation where you won't be able to hook it up at all in the foreseeable future.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

The reason it never went anywhere was because Apple thought it was a high-end feature for some reason and never included it in any but their most expensive machines. As a result, it's a high-end feature that no one uses. :/

This is absolutely correct. What Apple should have done and actually still could do is drop the FW400 ports on all Macs and instead use only FW800 ports. FW800 is downward compatible. A simple $3 dongle would allow people to use all FW400 peripherals. On the other hand such a move would immediately create a large installed user base. You would see a surge in available FW800 peripherals.

The way they're handling it right now they might as well can FW altogether and go eSATA.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Simon 

The way they're handling it right now they might as well can FW altogether and go eSATA.

eSATA would be fantastic (fast and cheap), but I think Apple will wait until SATA-IO adds power to the standard.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by mduell 

eSATA would be fantastic (fast and cheap), but I think Apple will wait until SATA-IO adds power to the standard.

Obviously. FW's key advantages are cable length and bus power. If the latter eventually gets taken care of that's one more reason to switch. It's a pity we're till waiting for that.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Simon 

This is absolutely correct. What Apple should have done and actually still could do is drop the FW400 ports on all Macs and instead use only FW800 ports. FW800 is downward compatible. A simple $3 dongle would allow people to use all FW400 peripherals.

You wouldn't even need a dongle - all that would have happened would have been that when you'd go out to buy a FW cable, you'd get one with a FW800 connector on one end and a FW400 connector on the other instead of one with FW400 on both ends. Apple could have even supplied a cable with the first few generations of FW800-only machines, the same way they supplied a 6-pin to 4-pin connector with the first few generations of FireWire-enabled Macs so users would get used to the connector not being the same as the one on their video camera.

Oh well, FW is dead. Bring on eSATA.

Originally Posted by Simon 

Obviously. FW's key advantages are cable length and bus power. If the latter eventually gets taken care of that's one more reason to switch. It's a pity we're till waiting for that.

Well, the other advantage is daisy-chaining, which to be honest is really helpful, although I'm not sure it will help FireWire much against eSATA's blazing speeds (now, if FW800 were commonplace, it might have more of a chance since the difference from eSATA would be smaller).

[Simon]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Well, the other advantage is daisy-chaining, which to be honest is really helpful...

Sure it is but you can get a decent eSATA enclosure which will include a port multiplier on the backplane so you can connect up to 15 devices to one SATA bus. Of course all devices have to share the 3Gbps bandwidth, but it is fully transparent to the drives.

[forumhound]

i have two posts here (somewhere) that are related. I just got a 2.5 esata/usb/fw400 enclosure (very nice) but I guess I need to get a pci card to hook up the esata connection. The tech at the apple shop (Saim - Paragon mall) told me that esata won't boot, so I did not get the PCI card just yet. Is this true? he also told me that usb won't boot but it does, so I am not sure what is true. I need a solution for many macs in our studio, and I am here shopping, so not sure what enclosures to get. it seems the choices here in BKK are this:
1. estata 2/usb/firewire400
2. usb/firewire800
So what to do? We have imacs, and for those it seems esata2 is out of the question, yes? So for a solution for both imacs and mbps, it seems that option 2 is the fastest yes?

Thanks for ur help!
FD

[Simon]

For iMacs and MBPs you definitely need option 2. You can get eSATA on the MBP (E/34 card), but not on the iMac. In principle there is a solution to get eSATA on the iMac but it involves attaching an adapter to FW400. That will bottleneck you to FW400 speeds. FW800 will offer superior performance.

And yes, you can boot both your MBP and your iMac off a USB HDD.

[forumhound]

Thanks Simon. I think Option 2 would be best but now the problem is that firewire800 is almost impossible to find here in BKK. I guess asia just isn't up to speed, or they are bypassing fw800 altogether or just using usb. The only cases I can find that have fw800 are over 100$. They are nice however, they use the same chipset as Lacie enclosures so the salesperson says. The 30$ cases are all usb and some are fw400, but really really cheesy...chinese aluminum case/awful power supplies (i know from experience)/and no fan. oh well, I guess I have to bite the bullet!
FD

PS. Is the e/34 card really worth it? that runs about 75$ here...but it makes video work faster on a 5400 2.5 drive, then perhaps I will spring for the card, as my external case supports it...also, will it boot from the e/34 card? thx again.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Oh well, FW is dead. Bring on eSATA.

But eSATA is really only for hard drives, and even if you are satisfied with USB for most everything else, I won't take a digital camcorder seriously if it doesn't have Firewire.

[CharlesS]

True, but USB technology keeps advancing as well, with USB 3.0 on the horizon. I suspect that as soon as USB becomes "good enough" for camcorders, you'll stop seeing FireWire being used there anymore either.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

The reason it never went anywhere was because Apple thought it was a high-end feature for some reason and never included it in any but their most expensive machines. As a result, it's a high-end feature that no one uses. :/ I wouldn't say it's any less future-proof than FW400, though, since FW800 drives can connect to a FW400 port without any trouble at all. And if you've got a FW800-capable machine, you will notice the benefits over FW400.

I thought firewire was dead the day after Apple started producing USB-only iPods?

[CharlesS]

That was more of a symptom than a cause.

[bencurtis]

"In principle there is a solution to get eSATA on the iMac but it involves attaching an adapter to FW400"

Simon - could you elaborate on that? The only solution I'm aware of that's not a tricky hack is this device which should be out in about a month....

FirmTek SeriTek/SpyderHUB

Thanks.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

But eSATA is really only for hard drives, and even if you are satisfied with USB for most everything else, I won't take a digital camcorder seriously if it doesn't have Firewire.

I don't know what market you're in, but the current generation of HDD and flash based consumer camcorders are mostly USB2 only (and even when they have Firewire, it doesn't work with iMovie). With the isochronous requirement gone (which ironically makes things faster since you can do better than realtime transfers) there isn't much reason to pay the price for Firewire.

Originally Posted by bencurtis 

"In principle there is a solution to get eSATA on the iMac but it involves attaching an adapter to FW400"

Simon - could you elaborate on that? The only solution I'm aware of that's not a tricky hack is this device which should be out in about a month....

You can use a FW-SATA or FW-IDE bridge chip and attach it to a cheap SATA-eSATA or IDE-SATA adapter.

[forumhound]

anyone know if esata2 drive will be bootable in leopard as is USB and FW? the esata express card requires a driver, so makes me think not...thx.

[forumhound]

Originally Posted by bencurtis 

"In principle there is a solution to get eSATA on the iMac but it involves attaching an adapter to FW400"boxes.

Simon - could you elaborate on that? The only solution I'm aware of that's not a tricky hack is this device which should be out in about a month....

FirmTek SeriTek/SpyderHUB

Thanks.

this looks sweet and perhaps the wave of the future until apple includes the esataII ports on their boxes. Unfortunately, it will take ages to get to asia, just like the iphone, and will cost twice as much as in the us. arg...

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by forumhound 

anyone know if esata2 drive will be bootable in leopard as is USB and FW? the esata express card requires a driver, so makes me think not...thx.

eSATA is just SATA with a slightly different connector, so as soon as Apple wakes up and adds eSATA to the logic board, it should be just as bootable as your internal hard drive is.

The third-party cards, of course, are another story. You might want to Google around for the brand of eSATA card you're looking at to see if it's bootable or not.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by bencurtis 

Simon - could you elaborate on that? The only solution I'm aware of that's not a tricky hack is this device which should be out in about a month....
FirmTek SeriTek/SpyderHUB
Thanks.

That's exactly the device I had in mind. If you want to go eSATA on an iMac that's your only option. But since you'll be bottlenecked by FW400 (through which this thing connects) it's of no advantage. A regular (and inexpensive) SATA drive in a decent case (read it has a FW800 bridge) running on the iMac's FW800 bus will offer better performance at a lower price.

OTOH on a MBP or MP an eSATA card will offer best performance per $.

[forumhound]

charles, yes i understand and I am planning on getting the ONLY esata card for my mbp that is available in Bangkok, but the apple store tech does not know if it's bootable or not, he thinks not, as there is driver that must be installed. Are u saying it's card dependent? that would suck. thx.

hmmm...the case i have, and plan to buy more, has the lacie chipset in it for esata2/usb/fw400/fw800. I wonder if i had both connectors plugged in if it would boot ie. have the estata express card connected to the drive and the usb or firewire connected as well. then if it did not find the drive thru esata it would default to the FW connection...dunno....

[CharlesS]

To be honest, I don't know. What you should do is note down the name of the company that makes the card, and Google for that '<company name> esata bootable' and you might find some answers to that question.

[forumhound]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

To be honest, I don't know. What you should do is note down the name of the company that makes the card, and Google for that '<company name> esata bootable' and you might find some answers to that question.

Thanks Charles, I am going to just go the shop and have them install the card and i'll bring my portable drive. if it boots i'll buy it, if not, eh..... i'll post back here when successful....

[mduell]

Originally Posted by forumhound 

anyone know if esata2 drive will be bootable in leopard as is USB and FW? the esata express card requires a driver, so makes me think not...thx.

There is no such thing as "esata2."

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

eSATA is just SATA with a slightly different connector

And higher minimum signaling voltages.

[forumhound]

Originally Posted by mduell 

There is no such thing as "esata2."

Not sure what u mean, there seems to be millions of hits: esata II - Google Search

Maybe its correctly called esata II but I want to know if it boots, that's all! thx.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by forumhound 

Not sure what u mean, there seems to be millions of hits: esata II - Google Search

Maybe its correctly called esata II but I want to know if it boots, that's all! thx.

Other people on the internet getting it wrong doesn't mean anything.

The governing body for the SATA standard is quite clear on the issue.

eSATA can be bootable in a Mac Pro.