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mac style hard drive enclosure

post #1 of 16
7/21/06 at 8:40am
Thread Starter 
I'm looking for a hard drive enclosure that has the "mac style" ie the white look. Looking for a firewire connection too. any help would be great. thanks.
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post #2 of 16
7/21/06 at 12:47pm
http://www.macheaven.co.uk/?page=proddetail&prod=19662

I personally go for Lacie - they have the silver kind.
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post #3 of 16
7/21/06 at 8:50pm
Quote:
Originally posted by soonToBeMac
I'm looking for a hard drive enclosure that has the "mac style" ie the white look. Looking for a firewire connection too. any help would be great. thanks.

Thats a true mac fan, nothing on the desk that doesn't have the apple touch.
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post #4 of 16
7/22/06 at 8:13am
Quote:
Originally posted by soonToBeMac
I'm looking for a hard drive enclosure that has the "mac style" ie the white look. Looking for a firewire connection too. any help would be great. thanks.

If you're the slightest bit handy with electronics, I have an idea for you...

I ordered a REAL Mac Mini chassis which included the top and bottom of the enclosure. I got this off of Ebay for only $30. Then all you need to do is wire the "innards" of a hard drive enclsoure inside. Unfortunately, I haven't performed the installation yet, but it's going to be VERY cool when I get it done.

Just a thought...
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post #5 of 16
7/22/06 at 10:09am
Thread Starter 
that would be cool! although i would have no real idea how to do it, dont suppose there is instructions on the net is there?
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post #6 of 16
7/22/06 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally posted by pcguru83
If you're the slightest bit handy with electronics, I have an idea for you...

I ordered a REAL Mac Mini chassis which included the top and bottom of the enclosure. I got this off of Ebay for only $30. Then all you need to do is wire the "innards" of a hard drive enclsoure inside. Unfortunately, I haven't performed the installation yet, but it's going to be VERY cool when I get it done.

Just a thought...

That's pretty damn cool man. When you're done make a thread about it with some pictures if you don't mind. Maybe even instructions.
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post #7 of 16
7/22/06 at 1:47pm
Yeah, I'll be sure to post some pics when I get it done. I've still got to get a hard drive enclosure though (next pay day \), so it will be another week or so. I'll keep everyone up to date.
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post #8 of 16
7/22/06 at 4:45pm
Quote:
Originally posted by pcguru83
If you're the slightest bit handy with electronics, I have an idea for you...

I ordered a REAL Mac Mini chassis which included the top and bottom of the enclosure. I got this off of Ebay for only $30. Then all you need to do is wire the "innards" of a hard drive enclsoure inside. Unfortunately, I haven't performed the installation yet, but it's going to be VERY cool when I get it done.

What will you do about the optical drive slot?

BTW, I suggest looking up a firewire bridge board rather than buying a complete enclosure. That way you are only buying the FW<->drive converter and power adapter. The bridge boards might not be much cheaper, but they appear to be easier to integrate into an enclosure and may be better quality.
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post #9 of 16
7/22/06 at 4:50pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Marvin
http://www.macheaven.co.uk/?page=proddetail&prod=19662

I personally go for Lacie - they have the silver kind.

There is also G-Tech:

http://www.g-technology.com/
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post #10 of 16
7/22/06 at 9:55pm
I just got a couple of these. 500MBs each.



Actually, I'm still waiting for one. One had foil sticking out the back of each port so I sent it back. Then MacMall screwed the pooch and charged me three times for one drive. Idiots! I used a debit card and they overdrew my account. Now they are supposedly trying to fix the problem with my bank but I haven't heard back from them. In the mean time they also screwed up the shipping. Supposed to overnight it but instead they chose the cheapest 10-14 day option. IDIOTS!

Anyway, the drives are fanless (ummm, super-quiet) and it comes with one USB 2.0 port, two Firewire 400 ports and one Firewire 800 port.
http://ultrasuperdeluxe.squarespace.com/
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http://ultrasuperdeluxe.squarespace.com/
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post #11 of 16
7/24/06 at 5:05pm
Quote:
Originally posted by JeffDM
What will you do about the optical drive slot?

BTW, I suggest looking up a firewire bridge board rather than buying a complete enclosure. That way you are only buying the FW<->drive converter and power adapter. The bridge boards might not be much cheaper, but they appear to be easier to integrate into an enclosure and may be better quality.

Very good suggestion, I honestly didn't know such a thing was even available. I've never really ever had the need for such a thing before. Any idea where I could get one of these, be it online or in-store?
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post #12 of 16
7/24/06 at 5:51pm
Quote:
Originally posted by rongold
I just got a couple of these. 500MBs each.

Only 500 MBs apiece?
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post #13 of 16
7/24/06 at 6:43pm
Quote:
Originally posted by pcguru83
Very good suggestion, I honestly didn't know such a thing was even available. I've never really ever had the need for such a thing before. Any idea where I could get one of these, be it online or in-store?

I have never seen them locally, I don't think it is something that a typical consumer store would carry. I think they are intended to allow upgrading existing SCSI enclosures. I find several using Google for "firewire bridge board". A lot seem a little expensive but there are a few affordable ones too.

The only problem I see is the power supply, I don't know if they convert power from a random DC source, if they do then you might be able to dig up a power brick from an abandoned piece of electronics.
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post #14 of 16
7/25/06 at 12:11pm
Quote:
Originally posted by JeffDM
I have never seen them locally, I don't think it is something that a typical consumer store would carry. I think they are intended to allow upgrading existing SCSI enclosures. I find several using Google for "firewire bridge board". A lot seem a little expensive but there are a few affordable ones too.

The only problem I see is the power supply, I don't know if they convert power from a random DC source, if they do then you might be able to dig up a power brick from an abandoned piece of electronics.

Interesting...at least I know what to Google for now. That's helpful. Somewhat off topic, but my apartment was involved in a fire over the weekend (myself, my wife, and our stuff is all OK ), so this project is going to have to take a back seat for a while since we'll be living at my parents house for about a month or so. But rest assured, once we get settled again, I'll be sure to report back with the results of this project.
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post #15 of 16
7/26/06 at 3:24am
I went down that road initially. I actually bought a generic enclosure from a PC store and an IDE HD. It cost me £100 for the enclosure (supported USB/FW and CD/DVD/HD) + 80GB drive.

Well, the enclosure failed straight away. It kept unmounting the drive. I took it back and sure enough, it needed replaced. So I waited over a week for the replacement. This worked fine for a few months and then started doing the same thing. It's now in a cupboard.

I bought an 80GB FW Lacie drive for £75 including delivery, which is much smaller, no fan so it's silent and has two FW ports so I can daisy chain.

I am never going the custom route again. I even considered getting the board itself and building one but where do you fit the board? If you don't manage to screw it to something, it's going to vibrate. Also, you have to make sure the board is supported on OS X. Most firewire devices don't need drivers but I'm pretty sure some of them do.

Weighing up the price and reliability of a custom build and a premade one like Lacie, it's just not worth it IMO.
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post #16 of 16
7/26/06 at 5:03am
Quote:
Originally posted by Marvin
I even considered getting the board itself and building one but where do you fit the board? If you don't manage to screw it to something, it's going to vibrate. Most firewire devices don't need drivers but I'm pretty sure some of them do.

If you are handy with a drill or Dremel, then there's no problem making a place to screw a bridge board to.

I don't think any of them need special drivers. There are specs for mass storage devices and a few other types of devices in the Firewire standard. Anything that's in the standard shouldn't need special drivers. It's not in any enclosure maker's advantage to require special drivers because that means they would have to write them.

I do agree that buying one pre-assembled is a more sure-fire way of getting an external drive that works. I have had at least some problems getting any empty enclosure to work with my drive, but the ones with drives already in them have never given me a problem.
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