Anyone have a suggestion for a quality hard drive enclosure? I'm looking for a USB 2.0 case for a desktop drive. I scaned through some old threads but there wasn't much of a consensus.
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Hard Drive Enclosure
- Thread starter Steven1621
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I don't think there's much to choose. I've bought a few now from CompUSA, Frys and a local store and they all work fine. It's really only the power supply that's the issue. A couple of tips though......
1) Firewire is quite a bit faster than USB2 in sustained transfer rates
2) Some enclosures have USB2 and Firewire support, which gives you the best of both worlds
3) I bought an enclosure for a 5.25" drive, and mounted a replaceable drive dock into it. Now I can plug a variety of hard disks into the dock for different purposes - backup, media files, downloads, whatever. It's a convenient way to put those smaller capacity drives you have lying around to good use.
1) Firewire is quite a bit faster than USB2 in sustained transfer rates
2) Some enclosures have USB2 and Firewire support, which gives you the best of both worlds
3) I bought an enclosure for a 5.25" drive, and mounted a replaceable drive dock into it. Now I can plug a variety of hard disks into the dock for different purposes - backup, media files, downloads, whatever. It's a convenient way to put those smaller capacity drives you have lying around to good use.
Since you have the newest 1.5GHz PB... with Firewire 800... you might want to look into a LaCie D2. They're allegedly (I don't have FW800 yet) crazy fast.Steven1621 said:
similar needs
I just replaced my powerbook drive with a hitachi travelstar and am looking for a 2.5" firewire enclosure. I've looked at newegg, and small dog, but nothing is jumping out at me. So, if anyone out there has any good recomendations, I too could use 'em.
Oh yeah, I also looked at OWC but they seem a little over priced. thoughts?
I just replaced my powerbook drive with a hitachi travelstar and am looking for a 2.5" firewire enclosure. I've looked at newegg, and small dog, but nothing is jumping out at me. So, if anyone out there has any good recomendations, I too could use 'em.
Oh yeah, I also looked at OWC but they seem a little over priced. thoughts?
brap said:
crazy fast, also crazy expensive. i don't need that speed enough to justify the cost. would be nice, though.
cluthz
macrumors 68040
Why you should consider firewire before usb2.0.
Take a look here! http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html
USB2.0 is much slower than both FW400 and FW800
Take a look here! http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html
USB2.0 is much slower than both FW400 and FW800
palusami
macrumors regular
hard drive enclosure
i recently bought a firewire enclosure for my dvd r so i could use it with my powerbook. one website that i found pretty helpful in terms of a variety of enclosures (both usb and fw based as well as enclosures for hd, cd and dvd burners) is other world computing. http://eshop.macsales.com/
they have a wide selection of enclosures. funny thing is after i was all set to buy from owc, i stopped by frys and found a dvd enclosure for about $20 less than what was on owc. its a bit of a trade off though since i had to pay sales tax. if i ordered from owc, there's no sales tax (since i live in ca) and shipping is free for items over a certain $$ amount. i just would have to wait a week or so and i was getting anxious.
although i didn't buy the enclosure from owc, i did buy some memory from them and had a great experience overall.
hope this helps...
i recently bought a firewire enclosure for my dvd r so i could use it with my powerbook. one website that i found pretty helpful in terms of a variety of enclosures (both usb and fw based as well as enclosures for hd, cd and dvd burners) is other world computing. http://eshop.macsales.com/
they have a wide selection of enclosures. funny thing is after i was all set to buy from owc, i stopped by frys and found a dvd enclosure for about $20 less than what was on owc. its a bit of a trade off though since i had to pay sales tax. if i ordered from owc, there's no sales tax (since i live in ca) and shipping is free for items over a certain $$ amount. i just would have to wait a week or so and i was getting anxious.
although i didn't buy the enclosure from owc, i did buy some memory from them and had a great experience overall.
hope this helps...
Counterfit
macrumors G3
I've bought two FW800 hard drives from OWC, and they're great (almost full too 😉). I'll hopefully be getting another one, as soon as I can afford it (along with the millions of other things on that list 🙁)
Yeah, yeah... I have the 320GB Extreme running on FW400... damn fast, relative to both my PCs ATA100 7200rpm beasts, and the 5400rpm in my Powerbook... just not had firsthand experience of the firewire 800 speeds.russed said:
Sorry if the suggestion was way out, it's from the fact these work out equal to, or cheaper than a comparative home-made drive over here 😱
solvs
macrumors 603
OWC's cases are nice. You do get what you pay for. But I would definitely buy the drive and case separately. Cheaper that way. If you are going for price, just buy an Oxford case and drive from Newegg. Read the reviews, make sure it has large drive support, etc. Personally, I was pretty happy with a model I bought here. But it's mostly just a backup, so I'm not sure how good they are in the long run.
