[Graymalkin]

I've finally decided I need an external Firewire drive for my Powerbook. I've got a lot of junk on my PC I need to have accessible on my Mac without filling up my Powerbook's internal drive.

Right now I'm looking at 120GB drives, enough room for my junk as well as room to grow. The two drives that appeal to me most right now are the SimpleTech Firewire/USB2 120GB and the LaCie d2 120GB. The SimpleTech is about twenty dollars cheaper from MacConnection ($179) than the LaCie ($199). They both have 7200rpm drives with 2MB caches as far as I know. Is there anything about the LaCie that makes it worth the extra twenty dollars?

I'd like to know how heavy duty these drives are. The drive would likely see a lot of work and be run for up to 8 hours a day. Are the power supplies reliable and do the drives run warm at all? I'm also wondering about actual performance, most of the files will be smaller files (2-4MB images) though I'll likely use the drive for DV video as well. Are either of these drives reliable enough for a lot of graphics and video work?

So anyone have any first hand experience with these drives or maybe can point me to some reviews of them? I've been scouring MacWorld but have yet to find anything on them.

[Luca Rescigno]

I always tell people to assemble their own external hard drives. Just buy the hard drive of your choice (if you want speed, get a Western Digital Special Edition) and put it in a cheap external Firewire case. I got an 80 GB that way and it only cost me $110, which is about $50 less than what I would have spent on the cheapest pre-made drive.

You can't really comment on the speed of the drives themselves because each company uses multiple drive makers. Maybe one LaCie will come with a Western Digital and another will come with a Hitachi. Buying the bare drive separately gives you more control over that. I don't know about the robustness of the power supply on my drive but it seems to work fine, and it uses the Oxford 911 chipset even though it was the cheapest available at NewEgg.com.

[aaanorton]

If you're not in a hurry, keep an eye on LaCie's Clearance Corner. I got a 52x CDRW there and am VERY happy with it. You save some money, but are limited to a 90 dat warranty. For me, this is fine, for this type of product.
They only have an 80 GB d2 there now, but they update the offerings there fairly often.

[israces]

Look for deals from local chains (BestBuy, CompUSA, CircuitCiity) on Western Digital Drives. I have seen sales combined with rebates that can land you a 250 GB drive for $150. Then get a case from OWC and you're good to go.

Also, try looking at DealMac for other deals.

[Graymalkin]

Thanks for the reaponses! I was considering assembling my own external drive but the was dissuaded because the last time I looked at external cases they were in the $100 range. It seems that external cases have dropped in price quite a bit since the last time I checked them out.

Any good pointers to good external cases? I'd really like something with a decent amount of mass, one of the aspects of the LaCie's that drew my interest. I tend to knock stuff over and would like an external drve that wouldn't go tumbling off my desk at the slightest bump. The way I've got everything arragned on my desk it would be difficult to lay a drive flat so I pretty much vae to set it upright. I'm not going to carry the drive in a backpack so a nice heavy metal case doesn't bother me much.