I have a 15" MacBook Pro with an ExpressCard slot. I'm going to need more storage soon and I'm thinking about getting a multi-drive enclosure. I know this usually means RAID- but actually I'd like to operate the disks within the enclosure independently. I'd prefer an at least partially aluminum enclosure. I've looked at all the usual suspects- LaCie, OWC, G-Drive, Western Digital and I'm actually considering this Icy Dock enclosure. I already have a FW400 single-drive enclosure from them, so this would at least give me the advantage of being able to swap drives easily between the single and multi-bay enclosures.
eSATA is nice because its faster than FW800, but I have a few qualms about it- first, that I would have to purchase an ExpressCard for it. While this isn't an issue, back in the day I had a compatibility issue with a combo Firewire/USB card (in my Power Mac 8600!) which ended up corrupting some of my files. As such, I'm wondering if something like this could be a problem with a non-native interface. I don't know if there are any other issues I should be aware of, as I've never used eSATA on my MBP. And of course, I'm wondering if I can actually operate those drives separately or if its RAID only.
eSATA is nice because its faster than FW800, but I have a few qualms about it- first, that I would have to purchase an ExpressCard for it. While this isn't an issue, back in the day I had a compatibility issue with a combo Firewire/USB card (in my Power Mac 8600!) which ended up corrupting some of my files. As such, I'm wondering if something like this could be a problem with a non-native interface. I don't know if there are any other issues I should be aware of, as I've never used eSATA on my MBP. And of course, I'm wondering if I can actually operate those drives separately or if its RAID only.