[skyman]

I just bought a replacement SATA hard drive for my MBP and I want to use the old SATA drive as an external drive for backup.

Can anyone recommend a couple good SATA firewire cases for my old SATA drive?

Thanks!

[rjt1000]

I've been happy over the years with purchases from Other World Computing.

This is their offering for 2.5 inch SATA drive to firewire interface enclosure:

OWC Mercury On-The-Go 2.5" FW800/USB2.0 Encl... (MSTG800U2) at OWC

It is clear plastic, bus powered, sports the Oxford924 chipset and an aluminum heatsink, and comes with a nice carrying case as well.

I have the older ATA to firewire 400 (Oxford911) version of this enclosure and have found it rugged and reliable, and a good performer with my Hitachi Travelstar 7200 rpm drive. It came with a sturdy leather case and a (thoughtfully) short firewire cable, as well as an AC adapter you won't need. Installation was straight forward.

I am guessing, there are cheaper enclosures. But if you don't mind spending modestly more for quality, OWC won't disappoint.

Googling for alternatives, I found these two, although not any cheaper:

WiebeTech ToughTech Mini FW 800/USB 2.5 SATA Drive Enclosure from Small Dog Electronics
2.5" SATA HDD to a USB 2.0 and FireWire 800/400 Oxford 924 Chip

And this thread which seems to say there arent bargains for the enclosure you need

Reasonably priced 2.5" SATA firewire enclosures? - Topic Powered by eve community

[jeebus]

Instead of getting a firewire enclosure I'm pretty sure you could get an eSATA enclosure. Then just get a cheap eSATA expresscard and your external drive will be accessed as quickly as your internal drive. The firewire bridge creates quite a bottleneck.