Sesshi said:
The r/w speed of 2.5" drives make improvements marginal with FW at best, with a potentially higher drain on the batt. In terms of Win/Mac compatibility a USB2 drive has a higher chance of actually fitting.
And the thing about sustained writes and data errors - complete utter bollocks.
Why is USB2 less of a potential drain on the battery, I've not read that before? 7.2k 2.5i Hitachi or Seagate in a FW800 case is not marginal, btw, those 2 drives can exceed the FW400 interface speed (even more so over the USB2 implementation on the Mac, which is slower on the MBP compared to it's Win counterpart). And FW rules as far as hot swap/bus powered portability. Who needs to be teethered by AC cords from power bricks?
http://www.barefeats.com/hard55.html
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For starters, USB 2.0 is slower than FireWire 400, as you can see from items 3 and 4 in the graphs above. FireWire 400 may be rated at 400Mbits/sec (40MBytes/sec) compared to USB 2.0's 480Mbits/sec (48MBytes/sec), but the reality is that USB 2.0 devices typically transfer at HALF the rate of FireWire 400. With that in mind, don't you wish the Flash Drives were FireWire 400 instead of USB 2.0?"
http://www.barefeats.com/hard80.html
http://www.barefeats.com/hard61.html
This uk site lists the new WD 160GB SATA model WD1600BEVS, but I doubt they have it in stock as WD's own USA site only has it in stock periodically.
http://www.ittradelink.co.uk/webshop/wList2.asp?q=HDIDEw&t=Hard Drives (IDE)&c
Hitachi came out with the SATA 160GB 1st, so you're most likely to find that one when they come back in stock in the UK:
Google search on "HTS541616J9SA00 site:uk" shows macheaven with expected availability of Oct. 31.
http://www.macheaven.co.uk/?page=category&categoryid=618
(Fujitsu has announced, AFIK, but not yet shipped a 5.4k SATA 160GB version)
http://laptoping.com/fujitsu-mhw2160bh.html
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The MHV2160BH hard disk drives will begin shipping by the fourth quarter of 2006."...so anytime now. If you consider the 4.2k Fujitisu's did well in barefeats tests, perhaps the PMR 160GB will turn out to be the best of the bunch, time will tell.
I know it's better to support a Mac business like OWC, but you can get the SATA Hitachi from newegg.com for $35 less, before shipping costs, if you really need it now. Just better hope you never have to do an RMA for a defective drive though as you costs for shipping will kill you. Lucky me (except for state sales tax), I live nearby newegg, but I bought a 5k120 Hitachi from OWC that has started to have the actuators do a clicking thing when the heads park after each seek, really annoying, so I'm waiting for another replacement, but the entire batch OWC got in one shipment could have this irritating clicking problem that developed after one week of use. If you read up on the ATA Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160GB on newegg.com , a number of customers have had the drive fail on them with recently shipped product, YMMV
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822145113
