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guywithsocks

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 27, 2004
14
0
Texas
Which one should I go with? Name brand like Maxtor/Lacie or a generic enclosure with an OEM hard drive?

Right now I have a OEM Seagate inside a Speeze 3 1/2", and it sucks! Any time I try to perform an extended file transfer, the activity light turns off and the progress bar hangs; however, the hard drive is still spinning. This happens when I try to mirror my hard drive or try to install OS X to the FW drive. Any ideas as to WHY?

Your guidance is very appreciated!

Guywithsocks
 

katie ta achoo

Blogger emeritus
May 2, 2005
9,166
5
I have a generic drive in a generic enclosure. I've had no problems with it personally. I think I'm just lucky. :p

A lot of people like the LaCie drives.
 

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Jan 6, 2004
19,241
6
i have a Maxtor, works great for my needs, Lacies are often recommended too, but plenty of people get by just fine on the generics too, up to you in the end
 

Capt Underpants

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2003
2,862
3
Austin, Texas
dmw007 said:
My advice, go with a LaCie drive (or other brand name HD - just don't go the generic route).

LaCie doesn't make hard drives. They take someone else's HD (i think mostly maxtor's) and put them in an enclosure, then sell it for a high price. Just go out and buy an enclosure and a good 8 MB cache buffer, 7200 RPM HD.
 

dmw007

macrumors G4
May 26, 2005
10,635
0
Working for MI-6
Capt Underpants said:
LaCie doesn't make hard drives. They take someone else's HD (i think mostly maxtor's) and put them in an enclosure, then sell it for a high price. Just go out and buy an enclosure and a good 8 MB cache buffer, 7200 RPM HD.

Yes, guess that I should have been more clear - buy a LaCie external HD enclosure w/ a bundled HD.
 

Capt Underpants

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2003
2,862
3
Austin, Texas
dmw007 said:
Yes, guess that I should have been more clear - buy a LaCie external HD enclosure w/ a bundled HD.

You can get an 80 GB hard drive for $70, and an external enclosure for $40. A lacie 80 GB HD costs $140. You save $20. I think it's worth it to stick a hard drive into a box and save $20.
 

FFTT

macrumors 68030
Apr 17, 2004
2,952
1
A Stoned Throw From Ground Zero
These miniStacks are SO cool!

Up to 500GB!!!!!! 7200 RPM

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ministack/

miniheaderports.jpg
 

wrc fan

macrumors 65816
I vote for the do it yourself method. I got a 120GB Seagate HD that I had lying around and bought a $35 enclosure with an oxford 911 chipset and it's been flying along ever since. Even if I didn't have the HD, I could've gotten the same HD at Fry's for like $75 (and now probably an even bigger one for the same price).
 

krimson

macrumors 65816
if you care about looks, get the brand name. i have quite a few ext hd's, all of them are generic cases and hd's that i purchased seperately.
drives shouldn't cost more than 1/2 the capacity.. ie.. 200gb drive shouldn't be more than $100, look around, and you'll find a good deal on a bare drive.
ext cases are $30-$80 depending on what you want on it.
 

iMeowbot

macrumors G3
Aug 30, 2003
8,634
0
One enclosure maker I've come to avoid is Mapower (they also make enclosures for EZ Quest, BTW). Their bridge boards are fine, same as almost everyone else's, but the power supplies are distinctly unreliable.
 

Angelus520

macrumors regular
May 22, 2003
133
0
Chicago
Do it yourself. I just bought a 400GB Seagate drive with a 5-year warranty and stuck it in a nice OWC aluminum FireWire 800/400 enclosure. I'd always bought prepackaged external drives before so I'd never done anything like that. I'm fairly mechanically challenged but it was a piece of cake.
 

~Shard~

macrumors P6
Jun 4, 2003
18,377
48
1123.6536.5321
I would recommend going the enclosure route. That way, you can always use a different HD if need be, or when you fill the existing HD up, you can put it away in storage and pop in a new one. Plus, you pay a premium for external HDs, and with the decreasing HD costs and increasing capacities, you're better off to buy an internal drive for less and pop it in an enclosure. Then, in a couple years, you can replace your existing drive (120 GB let's say) with a 500 GB drive (or something comparable) for the same price and not have to worry about buying a new external drive for more $$$!

Make sure the drive enclosure supports FW400 (FW800 would be ideal, although then your system might be the bottleneck! :eek: ;)) and uses an Oxford chipset.

And as for Lacie drives, as Capt. Underpants pointed out, Lacie does not make their own HDs. If you buy a Lacie drive you're buying a Maxtor or Seagate drive, (possiby WD, I'm not sure what all they use), so don't fool yourself. Personally I have experienced nothing but troubles with Maxtor drives and think they are cheap, but I'm sure many people haven't had any issues with them. My recommendations would be Seagate or WD in that order.
 

Mebsat

macrumors regular
May 19, 2003
215
367
Florida
It's all about the cooling. I wasn't going to buy a small case due to heat concerns. Then I found this 3.5 inch case with a 8cm fan mounted under the drive. It's made by AMS (American Media Systems). They have various ones on newegg.com. You might see the form factor under different brand names but this is what it looks like, keeps my drive nice and cool.
 

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bodeh6

macrumors 6502a
May 18, 2005
773
0
Angelus520 said:
Do it yourself. I just bought a 400GB Seagate drive with a 5-year warranty and stuck it in a nice OWC aluminum FireWire 800/400 enclosure. I'd always bought prepackaged external drives before so I'd never done anything like that. I'm fairly mechanically challenged but it was a piece of cake.

Those are nice looking
1a.jpg
 

Angelus520

macrumors regular
May 22, 2003
133
0
Chicago
Neo Mike said:
Whoa! That looks nice.

What part number is that? Anyone have a link?

OWC Mercury Elite Pro -AL FireWire 800/400 Drive Enclosure with Oxford912 chipset.

The one in the above picture next to the G5 is the RAID version. I just got the single so it's just thinner. Really nice case - low-key without a ton of labels on it.

Here's another link to the OWC stuff:

OWC Mercury Elite Pro - AL Firewire Drives

Look for the build your own drive kits in the right hand column. They also sell Macally stuff but I heard they had issues with their power supplies not supporting super-large drives. They have a workaround but I needed a case that worked with a 400GB drive right out of the box.
 
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