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Which External Hard Drive ?
- Thread starter Reuven
- Start date
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firewire 800 is the best imho. I love LaCie disks, but I've heard not so many positive reactions about LaCie here 😕
stevietheb
macrumors 6502a
The only issue I know of with Lacie is the buffer size--a lot of them are 2MB instead of 8MB. (Though some are 8MB...just gotta look). They sure do LOOK nice though.
I recently setup a new scratch disk so that I could get my Final Cut Pro on...I purchased a bare internal drive and a USB 2.0 enclosure (don't have FW800--though, it might be overkill at this point). This ended up costing about the same as purchasing a true external drive (roughly $1/GB), however, the long-term benefits are great (provided you have no desire to really move the drive around that much). First off, in order to upgrade to a larger size, all I need to do is purchase the bare drive--which would cost significantly less than purchasing another external. Also, the case I got (made by ADS--about $45), can also be used as an enclosure for other types of drives (such as an internal DVD or CD writer)...of course, if you have all that fun stuff--then you don't really care.
My dos pesos.
I recently setup a new scratch disk so that I could get my Final Cut Pro on...I purchased a bare internal drive and a USB 2.0 enclosure (don't have FW800--though, it might be overkill at this point). This ended up costing about the same as purchasing a true external drive (roughly $1/GB), however, the long-term benefits are great (provided you have no desire to really move the drive around that much). First off, in order to upgrade to a larger size, all I need to do is purchase the bare drive--which would cost significantly less than purchasing another external. Also, the case I got (made by ADS--about $45), can also be used as an enclosure for other types of drives (such as an internal DVD or CD writer)...of course, if you have all that fun stuff--then you don't really care.
My dos pesos.
I would get the otherworldcomputing FW800 enclosure (it has ports for FW400 and USB 2.0 as well) and throw your own drives into it. It is very simple to do. I chose to install 120 gig Seagate Barracuda 8MB cache drives in mine (total cost for drive and enclosure- $240). Whatever drive you go with, make sure it carries the Oxford 922 chip (FW800) or Oxford 911 chip (FW400). I would certainly recommend FW800- much faster.Reuven said:
p.s. Lacie's are absolute garbage. Do NOT buy a Lacie (personal experience...as well as EVERYONE I work with in the industry says this)
That's what I mean 🙄
I wonder what kind of problems you've had with LaCie though, and I wonder how many people u consider EVERYONE... I find it hard to believe everyone having had a LaCie in the 'industry' and problems with it...
I bought an Iomega 80 Gig HD for my PC desktop about 6 to 9 months ago. It works great and I connect it to my iBook to do backups there too. Forgot it's a firewire connection.
Firewire back to hard drive
I guess this is as good a thread as any to place this since we are talking about external hard drives. I remember seeing someone selling or maybe it was an add in a magazine for an external enclosure that wasn't really an enclosure but that an adapter you could plug into a 3.5 Hard drive and connect it with firewire. Does anyone remember this from anywhere? I have googled till I can't google no more and I still haven't figured out where this was at. I know I thought it was silly at the time, but then I sit with lots of old ATA hard drives and a powerbook. It sure would be nice to just plug one in and go till I need to work on another. If anyone knows of these please post a link,
Thanks
Scott
I guess this is as good a thread as any to place this since we are talking about external hard drives. I remember seeing someone selling or maybe it was an add in a magazine for an external enclosure that wasn't really an enclosure but that an adapter you could plug into a 3.5 Hard drive and connect it with firewire. Does anyone remember this from anywhere? I have googled till I can't google no more and I still haven't figured out where this was at. I know I thought it was silly at the time, but then I sit with lots of old ATA hard drives and a powerbook. It sure would be nice to just plug one in and go till I need to work on another. If anyone knows of these please post a link,
Thanks
Scott
Scottwat, are you talking about this?
http://www.coolmaxusa.com/computers.asp?item=EXTERNAL ENCLOSURE
http://www.coolmaxusa.com/computers.asp?item=EXTERNAL ENCLOSURE
Didn't see it there
The one I am talking about actually leaves the internal ATA, SATA, IDE or whatever harddrive exposed. So it is more like a plug that plugs into the back of the drive, probably had a wall wart power adapter and then the USB or firewire plug. so it was very small and basically it would look like an internal harddrive sitting on your desk with something plugging it into your computer. That way there are no screws to unscrew on the case.
Thanks
Scott
GetGo said:
The one I am talking about actually leaves the internal ATA, SATA, IDE or whatever harddrive exposed. So it is more like a plug that plugs into the back of the drive, probably had a wall wart power adapter and then the USB or firewire plug. so it was very small and basically it would look like an internal harddrive sitting on your desk with something plugging it into your computer. That way there are no screws to unscrew on the case.
Thanks
Scott
Something like this
http://www.deltrontech.com/BridgeBoard/F9100-525NIS.htm
But this one doesn't have a power supply and uses 5V from an internal source, nor is there a way to purchase them.
http://www.deltrontech.com/BridgeBoard/F9100-525NIS.htm
But this one doesn't have a power supply and uses 5V from an internal source, nor is there a way to purchase them.
crazzyeddie
macrumors 68030
This? http://wiebetech.com/products/ComboDock.html
Also, I highly recommend OWC for all your external drives. They have Firewire 400 only, Firewire 400 + USB2, and Firewire 400/800 + USB2 drives at very good prices. My Firewire 400 + USB2 drive gets 36MB sustained and I have never had dropped frames when using it for video. They come loaded with Shareware and cool Apple stuff like old commercials (which of course you can delete if you need the room). They have great tech support too- you can't lose.
Also, I highly recommend OWC for all your external drives. They have Firewire 400 only, Firewire 400 + USB2, and Firewire 400/800 + USB2 drives at very good prices. My Firewire 400 + USB2 drive gets 36MB sustained and I have never had dropped frames when using it for video. They come loaded with Shareware and cool Apple stuff like old commercials (which of course you can delete if you need the room). They have great tech support too- you can't lose.
I've had one drive DOA out of the box, another failed after 10 months- thank god under warranty still...but what the hell?- my friend's Lacie failed as well after six weeks, and I have several friends who work in the audio/video field here in NYC and they wouldn't touch a Lacie HD with a ten foot pole (however, I DO have one friend who own a video production company and he recommends them- that's why I bought mine originally- BIG MISTAKE). Lacie makes kick-a$$ monitors though.Godfather said:
p.s. last time I was at the computer store there was a very angry man with his SECOND Lacie drive dead out of the box. Go figure. But hey...If they work for you...more power to ya!
Godfather said:
You're right - it's dogma. I do a lot with movie studios who use drives for critical stuff (mostly video and graphics) LaCie are all over and very well respected. Hollywood goes to the Apple store and buys LaCie - that's one industry that's happy with them. I'd file such broad statements along with 'Windows crashes all the time' and 'Steve Jobs makes no mistakes' - speculative garbage.
Anecdotal evidence isn't. I bought a Mac that was DOA and have just lost a pixel on my new PB. Does that mean Apples are crappy? No. It's bad luck and statistically irrelevant. People can offer opinions but not jusgements that stand up to scrutiny unless they have access to a huge volume of units and have taken care to note things. Forgive me being a pedant but I hate unscientific bias. People who've had poor experiences with a product often blame the brand when they shouldn't. We all know people who swear off Fords, Macs, PC's, Sushi and other things because at one point things went badly for them or a friend. If you can find a piece of hardware that no-one's got a bad thing to say about you're not looking hard enough.
As you might guess - I have 3 LaCie's (a CDRW and 2 500Gb FW800 externals). They run great and I've not had any problems.
My experience with Lacie is not "unscientific"- what is more scientific than personal experience- and repetitive personal experience at that (two crappy drives)? Lacie makes some very nice products (monitors), but their hard drives are hit or miss- read the Digidesign forums, apple forums, even this site etc. I have never heard one bad thing about OWC drives or Storcase products...NOT ONE! I've heard many bad things about Lacies as well as having bad experiences with them myself. Go figure.Penman said:
Of course most rational people don't think that a brand name sucks because a couple people rant on a forum about it cause they lost their wedding photos, but when you come across large numbers of people who bad mouth a product, and professionals at that (pro audio, video, etc.) there's usually a reason for that. Regardless of your own experience with Lacie, there are obviously many people who haven't had good experiences with them- as "godfather" said, even though he recommended Lacie, "I've heard not so many positive reactions about LaCie".
I wish the Lacie's were reliable- they look great, are very small, and the case is quite nice, but they did not hold up. They use cheap internal components like Maxtor HD's, they can be noisy (as I said before- hit or miss- depends on which drive you get inside), and the warranty is not great.
To the original poster...there are many drives out there that will do the trick. Choose based on what YOU want to buy. For low price FW800, as I stated before- I recommend OWC enclosures with either Seagate, IBM/Hitachi, or western digital caviar drives, (with 8MB cache). If you want to spend the cash, get a FW800 storcase silo with dual data carriers. I've also heard that the EZquest drives are nice, but I don't know anyone that has them.
I do not recommend Lacie's from PERSONAL experience- both my own and the experiences of my friends. If you want to give your opinion, "penman", then do as you will, but don't come off like mine is "speculative garbage". I simply stated what I think and what I've heard- the original poster can make up his own mind whether to trust what people say or not.
p.s. I never said everyone in the industry hates Lacie drives- I said everyone I KNOW in the industry doesn't like them, except for my friend Willie who did commercials for Sprite and such and he loves them.
throughput heaven
I've purchased a number of external Firewire drives from a small outfit in Southern California called All4DVD.com. They have been dependable and all are optimized for digital video, including Oxford chipsets which appear to increase the throughput significantly. These drives come with FW400, FW800 and USB2 so they're quite complete and the cost is competitive with other makes with lesser connections and circuitry. Look them over.
(I don't get anything for this, I'm just happy with the product.)
I've purchased a number of external Firewire drives from a small outfit in Southern California called All4DVD.com. They have been dependable and all are optimized for digital video, including Oxford chipsets which appear to increase the throughput significantly. These drives come with FW400, FW800 and USB2 so they're quite complete and the cost is competitive with other makes with lesser connections and circuitry. Look them over.
(I don't get anything for this, I'm just happy with the product.)
rtdunham
macrumors 6502a
Bhennies said:
you missed the point of the post you refer to. Your experience IS unscientific. Personal experience IS unscientific, unless it's a Consumer Reports statistical summary of 1,000 readers' personal experience with Toyota Corollas, for example. Science needs enough data to overcome normal variability.
Ever known a family with five kids, all sons? You just can't draw conclusions from that, or from your experience with five drives, or you and your friends' experiences with ten? Yes, the greater the number, the better the hypothesis you can formulate. And there's nothing wrong with letting your own experiences guide your personal decisions. That's perfectly rational. But it's not scientific.
peace
terry
I know that my experience is technically "unscientific", I was playing on penman's words. But, as I stated before, I would rather trust feedback from many many people I know as well as my own (personal experience). If people are only looking for "scientific" info, then why the hell are they asking for opinions on macrumors? They will probably only get 15-20 responses at most- I certainly know I've made excellent decisions from this site on what to purchase from just a few responses to my posts (my OWC drives, my Powerbook, waiting for a new 23" HD display etc.). The replies I got that I didn't feel were enough to make a decision prompted me to investigate further, both by doing my own research and asking my friends who have lots of experience.rtdunham said:
p.s. why does one writer's review (cnet, pcmag etc.) count when a consumer's review doesn't? I explained in my reply to penman my logic for formulating my opinion on Lacie drives.
p.p.s. and no, I didin't miss the point of penman's post. He was essentially saying that I had an abnormal experience with Lacie drives adn being a disgruntled consumer, I was generalizing about their products. I am saying that even if I did get a few abnormal duds, I know many others who have as well, and that I thought that the original poster should know that. We all know that there are plenty of functioning iBook g3's out there, but would you take the risk to buy one?
p.p.p.s.- type in "Lacie unreliable" into Google and see what happens.
rtdunham
macrumors 6502a
Bhennies said:
I concede your points. And it's nice to have participated in an argument (?) that did not conclude with name-calling. You doofus. (OOPS! sorry, and just kidding). Actually, your points are well made, and in fact reading this thread led me to other threads which--on a rational, if not fully scientific basis 🙂 -- resulted in me opting for an OWC drive and not the LaCies.
(possible explanation for my obstinance: I breed exotic animals, mostly rare color mutations, and genetics is fundamental to the exercise of my hobby/business. The amount of information proffered as "science" on forums on those subjects is appalling, and i brought that bias here. sorry.)
peace!
terry
Here is a question about external HDs...
Does the buffer size really make that much of a diffrence?
I am planning on buying one for my iBook to work with ProTools LE. Will spending the extra $$$ to get one with 8mb buffer increase my performance or not?
Does the buffer size really make that much of a diffrence?
I am planning on buying one for my iBook to work with ProTools LE. Will spending the extra $$$ to get one with 8mb buffer increase my performance or not?
YESSS!!!! For Pro Tools the cache is extremely important! I've also been told NOT to frequently defragment my hard drive by a pro audio tech at Glyph...supposedly when your drive is ready to defragment, you are supposed to copy your files onto another drive and then erase and defrag it. Hope this helps!Groovsonic said:
That's great! The OWC enclosures are dead quiet as well- I couldn't be happier. However, don't look directly into the blue light- they've been known to blind people 😛 .rtdunham said:
p.s. what kind of animals?
JFreak
macrumors 68040
lacie case is rock solid and they use hitachi drives inside, so no problem there. their only weak link is the fw400 connector which can break too easily - and warranty is great if you are still able to make a backup of the data inside, but if all the connectors are gone, you have to either lose your data or void your warranty, or pay a premium to data rescue company that is on lacie's approval list. they clearly state that their warranty doesn't cover data inside the drives but is only a product exchange program instead.
rtdunham
macrumors 6502a
Bhennies said:
For more than a dozen years i raised color morphs of several Australian birds popular in aviculture; wrote "The T.F.H. Book of Finches," published by Tropical Fish Hobbyist; spoke on the subject throught the U.S., in the UK and Australia.
More recently I'm breeding some very rare (they all start out that way!) color morphs of Honduran Milksnakes and Arizona Mountain Kingsnakes, and writing and speaking occasionally on those herpetocultural interets. Here's a pic of one of the types...we were lucky enough (well, ok, we worked hard enough!) to produce the first one of these in the world:
http://www.albinotricolors.com/images/01 sn f 2802 best.jpg
peace out
terry
JOD8FY
macrumors 6502a
LaCie
I bought a USB 2.0 enclosure from www.newegg.com and installed a 200GB 7200 RPM HD into it and it works great. i suggest you go that way.
By the way, does anyone have any experience with LaCie DVD burners? I was thinking of getting one. Are there problems like the HD's?
Thanks,
JOD8FY
I bought a USB 2.0 enclosure from www.newegg.com and installed a 200GB 7200 RPM HD into it and it works great. i suggest you go that way.
By the way, does anyone have any experience with LaCie DVD burners? I was thinking of getting one. Are there problems like the HD's?
Thanks,
JOD8FY