OWC 120gig 8mb cache firewire HD

dygysy

I came across this firewire / usb hard drive by OtherWorldComputing today, what I like about the specs is that its one of the new hard drives (probably Western Digital) with 8mb cache instead of the usual 2mb.



It comes in both a firewire version and firewire/usb combo version.



Does anyone have a firewire hard drive from OWC, do you like the case and how is the reliability?

giant

Theor cases have the fastest interfaces available, which you can verify anywhere, such as xlr8yourmac.com or barefeats.com. Their customer service in above and beyond any other company. I wouldn't buy a case from any other company.

capt. obvious

Funny you should ask....



I bought a 60 gb Firewire drive from OWC about 18 months ago. Had no end of trouble with it, and everything pointed to it being a problem w/ the drive itself (IBM 60XGP).



Cuting to the chase, they finally realised that my case had an old LSI Logic bridge chip, not the famous Oxford 911. They swapped it out (the case, I mean) on Tuesday (?), and I've been testing it ever since.



The verdict?

<img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" /> :cool:



Fast, and rock-steady! I'm using it as a jukebox @ the moment, and it streams the tunes flawlessly, no more apparent data corrruption, no more Finder seizures, no more mystery crap to account for!



And, despite the somewhat rocky road to resolution, the whole crew there @ OWC kept their focus & got it taken care of. Much as I hate to say it, I probably qualify as a pretty happy camper right now



So yeah, the OWC Mercury FW case absolutely screams w/ that 7200rpm in it - hands down, the fastest HD I've ever used. Looks good, too - matches my PM, and fits perfectly that flat spot on top of the case (and the little rubber feet - really, you'd think it was (well-) designed to live on top of a PMG4 :cool:



As I've had it less than a week, I comment on the reliability, but so far, so good.. And that's not bad.



And to complete my joy, I took delivery today of a 120GB WD/SE HD, w/ the 8mb cache, just like you're talking about ($157, shipping incl..), which I intend to install this very evening in my 2x1024 PM/DDR...shift the stock Seagate 80 to the ATA66 bus, and let the 120 have the ATA100 all to itself.... <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />

dygysy

Thanks for the info guys, now another question:



OWC sells the 120gig WD 8mb drive in the mercury elite firewire/usb case for $325.



They also sell the case by itself for $109, I can buy the hard drive myself for about $165 and save about $50, is there anything technical about putting the drive into the case myself or it basically slip it in.



Anything I should be aware of?

dygysy

Hmm, just went to resellerratings.com to check OWC's rating, not good their rating is 3.4% and the lowest is 3.3%!



I think only two people out of 22 had any positive things to say about them.

bauman

I've purchased RAM and my friend has purchased an external drive case. My only complaint is they were a little skimpy on the packaging both times, but both products got to us without any problems, working out of the box.

patchouli

Well that drive is indeed the Western Digital 120GB model which is one of the fasters IDE hard drives out there (according to many tech sites). So, the drive performance coupled with a good enclosure will make a nice external FW drive.



I personally have the portable SmartDisk 40GB FireLight FW drives (one for each my Mac and PC). For a small drive using a Texas Instruments chip, they are VERY fast and totally stable (not to mention QUIET).

codewarrior

I've bought several things from OWC without any problems. I've got a FireWire case from them and it works great. They even provided a firmware upgrade when an issue with 10.1 first came out. I'd buy from them again.



You might want to check out CompUSA until today they have $20 instant rebate on the 80 GB Western Digital HD with 8 MB cache. Final price with all rebates is $80.