Recommend me an external hard drive

shatteringglass · March 1, 2004 4:05PM

I'm going to be editing digital video, and I would like to buy an external FireWire hard drive. Preferably one that is under $150. I would like decent performance, and one that's really reliable. My previous LaCie d2 FireWire hard drive would lose data on a regular basis. (well, not lose data, but it wouldn't mount; my Mac would ask me to initialize the disk when I plug it in)

leonis · March 1, 2004 4:49PM

are you using the FW 800 or just FW 400????

No matter what I would recommend you to go get a DIY case and snap in the drive of your choice.

I usually save like around $120 CDN by doing this than buy a "brand name" ones (eg. LaCie)

torifile · March 1, 2004 8:02PM

I'm looking at doing exactly what Leonis suggested. There's this drive plus a FW enclosure from from newegg

I'm still looking around for prices (check fatwallet.com for the best deals). I'll post back if I find anything spectacular.

ipodandimac · March 1, 2004 8:06PM

i have a fw400 320GB lacie that kicks major ass

torifile · March 1, 2004 8:10PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ipodandimac

i have a fw400 320GB lacie that kicks major ass

But you probably paid way too much.

ipodandimac · March 1, 2004 8:57PM

Quote:

Originally posted by torifile

But you probably paid way too much.

not really, and given the fact that the job i bought it for paid for it about 4 times over, it wasnt that big of a deal. obviously i'll probably just get an enclosure next time, or an internal drive since i'll have a g5 soon (my emac sorta limited my options last time), but i dont regret getting it in any way.

shatteringglass · March 1, 2004 9:00PM

Yeah, I'm looking for FireWire 400, only. I would do a do-it-yourself kit, but I neither have the knowledge or the patience. An out-of-the-box and plug-and-play solution would be perfect for me.

luca · March 1, 2004 9:25PM

Don't worry, it's really easy to install. Just use my handy-dandy diagram!

pumpkintosh · March 1, 2004 9:36PM

You know... An external hard drive consists of:

1) The case.

2) The hard drive.

and

3) Screws..

If you have a screw driver, you can do it.

sunrein · March 1, 2004 9:38PM

In either case (pre-built or not), I'd go with the OWC line of external hard drives.

I own an OWC Mercury Elite Pro 800+USB 160GB drive, which supports FW400 and FW800, USB 2.0 and 1.1. They also make externals that support fewer connection types, but I like the flexibility that it gives me. Every review I read said that I'd be a fool not to buy it, so I did and I'm completely satisfied.

http://eshop.macsales.com/

Good luck, and Leonis and Luca are correct, it's easy as pie to put a hard drive into an external kit. Just make sure that you get a 7200 rpm drive and it has an 8MB cache.

torifile · March 6, 2004 12:37AM

So, I'm pretty much set on getting an internal and sticking it in an enclosure. Any recommendations? sunrein, any particular model you recommend? I don't need USB2, just 2 firewire ports. I'd like a power switch or something so I don't have to unplug it to turn it off.

I'm just waiting for a good deal on an internal drive to come along. I saw a 160gb Maxtor drive for $109 at Office Depot but I'm not sure that's the best I can do... I'm a cheap skate...

leonis · March 6, 2004 5:55PM

There are quite a few very portable 3.5" cases that has "only" firewire ports. Evne the USB+FW ones don't cost much more (like 15 CDN)

If I have a choice I will go for the usb+fw cause it can be handy for transferring files to other machines that don't have fw ports.....

Those cases with FW 800 ports are still very expensive

sunrein · March 6, 2004 8:47PM

Quote:

Originally posted by torifile

So, I'm pretty much set on getting an internal and sticking it in an enclosure. Any recommendations? sunrein, any particular model you recommend? I don't need USB2, just 2 firewire ports. I'd like a power switch or something so I don't have to unplug it to turn it off.

I'm just waiting for a good deal on an internal drive to come along. I saw a 160gb Maxtor drive for $109 at Office Depot but I'm not sure that's the best I can do... I'm a cheap skate...

I don't know of any reputable enclosure kits that only have firewire. Most have also USB2 along with firewire. Some cheap firewire-only drives are the Neptune drives, but they only come with 2MB cache on the HD. I'd really suggest a more full-featured kit like the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Oxford911 FireWire + USB 2.0/1.1 Enclosure Kit. It's basically what you want. Maybe put some tape over the USB port and you'll forget it's there. Hee hee.

Something else to keep in mind is that the cheaper kits can't handle larger hard drive sizes. The OWC line is nice because the enclosures can handle up to .5 terabyte hard drives. Some of the cheap kits are limited to 120GB. And we all know that size matters when it comes to external storage.

BTW - both the Neptune and Mercury Elite lines have power switches.

leonis · March 6, 2004 10:51PM

The brand of the case I use is Bytecc

osxaddict · March 7, 2004 8:02AM

The one problem I have with sticking a hard drive into a firewire enclosure is this...

Do it and you void the warranty on the hard drive. Yup, I found out the hard way. I have a 120GB WD 7200rpm 8MB cache HD that I stuck in a very similar case to this http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized...00_usb_lrg.jpg except it wasn't from OWC.

It works SOMETIMES...and like now, it went off the desktop unannounced and unprovoked, so I got the "warning, you ejected a disk etc" window.

I say for safety and warranty, buy a FW HD.

torifile · March 18, 2004 4:52PM

I just got my enclosure for my WD 160gig drive that I got from CC over the weekend. I went with the Macally enclosure. It was a little pricier but I knew I'd have no problems with bigger drives. It took about 5 minutes to put it all together.

I got an AppleScript to manage multiple libraries in iTunes and now I'm all set.

All in all, I spent about $145 for 160gigs. Not too bad.

Recommend me an external hard drive

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