[SCUmacadvocate]

Hi all,

I've been looking for a new firewire hard drive to accomodate my storage needs. I currently have a LaCie 60 GB HD I bought about a year ago that I've been more than happy with. But sadly, I've long used up all of the space on there and need a another drive.

Now, I am interested in a drive that is at least 120 GB, but am wondering whether I should go with a 1394b (firewire 800) or stay with the regular firewire standard. (I currently don't have a firewire 800 port on my 12" powerbook, but am looking to upgrade to the 17" powerbook in the near future.) Also, I am not sure whether I should go after a drive with a 2MB data buffer or one with 8MB.

I do a lot of graphics and some video work, and am wondering how these factors would affect my work. I would appreciate it if someone could help me.

Thank you very much,
BKI

[DNA man]

I just bought the laCie 120 Gb D2 drive FW400 yesterday. It is the standard 2mb buffer but the drive is more than fast enough for my general computing needs and is more than fast enough for my video editing needs as well. I thought about the FW800 question too but like you. I do not have FW800 on board at the moment. I will wait until I see some everyday benchmarks for FW800 before I buy.

With HD prices falling, I would recommend the Lacie ext FW drive. Chances are when you are really ready for a FW800 drive, the prices will have fallen on them too.
Happy shopping

[bbales]

I've been looking at the lacie as well (I think their products are good and the one time I had trouble, with a CD burner, the customer service was excellent). So the 2MB buffer isn't a problem? That's the one thing holding me back and keeping me considering an internal in an enclosure.

[nsxpower]

I just picked up a 7200rpm LaCie 80Gb FW400 drive a few weeks ago and so have been very happy with it. I don't have FW800 on board either, plus from what I've read you don't really need it unless you are trying to do a FireWire RAID setup and such.