External Hard Drive Question

[sonicj]

ok guys & gals... i have a 1.67ghz powerbook with 80 gigs of internal drive space data that i CANNOT afford to lose! i don't do any fancy video editing (*yet, but possibly in the future) i think what im looking for is maybe a one touch solution, or something i can administer myself with a separate partition for non critical files i don't want to keep on my book (its getting kinda full)... i know all you macs headz are into the lacie thing, im a seagate & wd fan myself and have never owned a lacie product. any ideas, suggestions, you're stoopid comments are welcomed! cheers!
-sonicj

ohh yea.. my target budget is maybe $200 on newegg. give or take... if you can justify spending more, then so be it, i'll do whats best for the dollar and spend the extra cheese! holla!

 

[Shaker]

ok guys & gals... i have a 1.67ghz powerbook with 80 gigs of internal drive space data that i CANNOT afford to lose! i don't do any fancy video editing (*yet, but possibly in the future) i think what im looking for is maybe a one touch solution, or something i can administer myself with a separate partition for non critical files i don't want to keep on my book (its getting kinda full)... i know all you macs headz are into the lacie thing, im a seagate & wd fan myself and have never owned a lacie product. any ideas, suggestions, you're stoopid comments are welcomed! cheers!
-sonicj

ohh yea.. my target budget is maybe $200 on newegg. give or take... if you can justify spending more, then so be it, i'll do whats best for the dollar and spend the extra cheese! holla!

I would seriously consider the IOMEGA Triple Interface (USB2.0/FW800/FW400) external hard drives over the Lacie Drives. The Lacie drives have a reputation of unreliability after ~1 year (just over the warranty period). The IOMEGA drive was rewarded the top external hard drive by MacWorld based on speed, cost, connectibility.
I have used both and the Iomega drive is whisper quiet whereas the LAcie drive can get noticebly loud. Just my 2 cents...

 

[yellow]

I've purchaed many LaCie products over the years and all of them are still going strong (and quiet), that being said, they are all 200GB or under in size. The unreliability and complaints seem to start in their larger size disks.

That being said, the last external HD I bought was a seagate 300GB drive from NewEgg, along with this external case. Easy to use, quiet, and it has a fan. The one drawback, you MUST use the enclosed FW cable to hook it to your Mac.

 

[emaja]

While I am sure that yellow's recommendation of that Venus enclosure is fine, I don't like the fact that you have to use a USB-mini cable for it. They can be a little more difficult to find in an emergency - depending on where you are.

I am a HUGE fan of OWC and their Mercury Elite Pro drives and enclosures. They use the reliable - and bootable - Oxford 911 chipset and do not have a fan for very quiet operation - and it costs only about $10 more than the Venus kit. It includes the power supply and both USB (standard A/B) and 6-pin FW cables along with some Danz Retrospect Express. I use SuperDuper myself so I can boot from the drive us FW target disk mode.

Go to a local retailer and buy a HD on sale and throw it in the case. Done.

 

[sonicj]

decisions decisions... why do you HAVE to you use the included cable with the venus? i can't use my monster cable i already paid too much for? btw, that thing is a joke! a slight bump results in the cable popping out fw port, a restart of my system, and resetting sound controls for my external firewire sound card. not cool!

the iomega is appealing due to the multiple interfaces (i can back up files on older pc's before reformatting. i do a lot of those) its alittle pricey for capacity though...

i like the owc. asthetically my style! but again... no usb. also, i only have one firewire 400 port and i have a firewire sound card as well. does that present a problem if my system drive crashes & i want to boot the backup drive with the soundcard looped in? does looping fw devices affect performance?

the iogear stuff looks dope. cool case, one touch backups, , multiple connectivity, quiet reviews. shouldn't any fw external drive be bootable under osx? holla!

sorry about all the questions. i just want as much real world advice as possible before i make my decision.

 

[yellow]

I got the venus, put in my disk, and plugged it into a known good regular firewire cable (6pin to 6pin). Started to copy data.. at about 220MB the copy failed and the disk appeared to lock up. Much troubleshooting later, I determined that if I used the 4pin to 6pin firewire cable that came with the venus, it worked fine with whatever hard drive I had in there. So, either I got a venus with a bad FW controller, or you HAVE to use the 4-6pin cable. Since I just used the 4-6pin cable, I've not had any problems at all with heavy use in the last 3 months on multiple computers.

Just in case you get it and have problems..

 

[crazzyeddie]

OWC has many, many different Firewire 400/800 and USB2 configurations to choose from. See their Firewire Section for all your choices.

I have had an OWC drive for over 2 years and it still runs just as good as day 1. I love it, and OWC has the best service and support I've ever seen. I just simply changed my mind on an order after it had been shipped to me, and they charged me no restocking or shipping fees. Great people.

 

[sonicj]

ok, so i got this one. usb & firewire

ordered a seagate 250gb uber quiet 7200rpm drive from newegg.


is the super duper free version ok? thanx for everyone's input!
-sonicj

 

[emaja]

is the super duper free version ok? thanx for everyone's input!
-sonicj

The free SD is really just the feature-locked version. By registering SD you unlock the scheduling and smart updates which saves a TON of time. The smart updates just copy the files that have changed since the last clone. My clones are now 10-15 minutes instead of hours long.

Well worth supporting a great Mac utility.

 

[danny_w]

I agree with emaja, it is worth the registration. However, the free version works just fine if you have the time, and makes perfectly bootable clones.

 

[sonicj]

nifty! thanx!

 

[Shaker]

ok, so i got this one. usb & firewire

ordered a seagate 250gb uber quiet 7200rpm drive from newegg.


is the super duper free version ok? thanx for everyone's input!
-sonicj

Great choice. OWC would have been my 2nd choice. It will serve you well for years.

 

[iGary]

I just got one of these and love it:

Filled with two Seagate drives.