I need an HDD enclosure

agentphish said:

I am looking for a reccomendation on just an enclosure. I have an 80 gig drive just laying around here that I want to be able to conenct to my mac and my pc. Both machines have USB2 and Firewire available to them. So my question is what enclosure should I get and where can I find a reliable one. The ones i'm finding on like pricewatch.com dont seem very good.

Thanks

Click to expand...

I always recommend newegg.com for any computer related purchase. Also, I have actually heard good things about CompUSA's 'generic brand' /house brand enclosures. I'm not sure who actually makes them, but their harddrives, for example, are just rebadged Maxtors.

Good luck,
Rob

Just Purchased One for my 200 GB Seagate drive

Hey, I just purchased an externall Firewire enclosure for my brand new Seagate 200 GB 3.5" hard drive. I spent $35 shipped, from http://www.dealsonic.com my friend who owns a business that networks and supplies computers for small business's uses this website. It was quick and easy, and the site is very clean and easy to navigate (plus everything was cheaper than newegg.com)


Just my $0.02 , and I've been a lurker for over a year now.

-Tim

I got an aluminum one off ebay for REAL cheap that does both USB2.0 and firewire. Only complaint is that you can't boot off of it due to the odd chipset it uses.

Do a Google search on Oxford 911 and 922 chipsets, also PL3057 chipsets. There are issues with FW and usb2 drives working with OS X.
My drive enclosure rarely worked with 10.3.7, but worked perfectly with Win XP - I ended up giving it away.

I just got an OWC case and 200GB drive for my birthday. The case has two FW800 ports (9 pin), and one each of FW400 (6 pin) and USB 2 (mini). Almost unfortunately, the drive I got (Maxtor DiamondMax 9) almost didn't fit in the case. I had to take the power and ATA connectors off the board to fit the drive in. And now the ATA cable pushes the top of the case up a little. Maybe I can find a better suited cable...

So to recap:
1) OWC Mercury is good (they use Oxford chips, mine has the 922 I think), they also have Neptune cases for less $$$.
2) Make sure the drive isn't too long. (No more than 8 inches I think)
3) There is no step 3

Get firewire

I don't think it hasn't been mentioned here, but USB2 is a lot slower compared to firewire on the mac. So make sure you don't get a USB2 only enclosure.

External HD & Enclosers...

I'm interested in this too, here's what I came up with:

All from http://www.newegg.com

For the HD:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=22-140-151&DEPA=1



For the Encloser:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-146-602&depa=0



Total (Before tax): $149.79

Went to pricewatch.com and got it shipped w/o tax for $25 USD. Generic like heck, USB 2.0, works perfect with my Maxtor 40gb and Seagate 20gb.