5.25" BluRay Optical FireWire Enclosure??

[HuggerMugger]

Alrighty,

So, I just bought a 5.25" Sata Samsung BluRay Combo Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151199

Now, I'm on the hunt for an external enclosure. I can find USB 2.0 ones easily (~$20-$40), but I was wondering is it worth it to go to a FW800 one ($100)? Like this one from OWC; (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Othe...medium=shoppingengine&utm_campaign=googlebase). It says "With transfer rates of up to 300MB/s ..." - isn't that USB 2.0 speed? So am I just paying for the convenience of using the firewire port??

So, go with a FW800 one? If so, will the data be at FW800 speeds? If not, what enclosure do you guys recommend?
Thanks, in advance, for the help.

 

[Badger^2]

How are you planning on using it?

Bluray movies in Windows? USB 2 is probably the better choice.

 

[Darth.Titan]

USB2 has a raw data rate of 480 Mbps, and an 8x BD reader pushes about 288Mbps.

FW800 is nice, but overkill for an optical drive.

 

[HuggerMugger]

I'm going to be backing up my bluray's with it in SL. Not so much for watching movies in Windows. So, since I thought BR's were like 25gb each, I was curious to know if the speed (USB vs FW800) is even something I need to worry about?

(thanks)

 

[krimsen]

USB doesn't have a constant throughput, whereas FW's transfer rates are stable, which is a huge benefit when writing media. That said, BD writers are probably not challenging even USB's throughput yet.

There is more technical reading on the net, but this is a nice explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface#Comparison_with_USB

 

[Draythor]

I have a feeling you may have a problem there. Seeing as Sl does not support Blu Ray format at all.

AFAIK.

 

[rickvanr]

I have a feeling you may have a problem there. Seeing as Sl does not support Blu Ray format at all.

AFAIK.

You can read/write BluRay in SL. I don't see backing up being a problem.

 

[computergek80]

Also, MB/s ≠ mb/s.
300MB/s probably refers to eSATA (SATA 300).
USB 2.0 would be 60MB/s and FireWire 800 would be 100MB/s.
But as Darth.Titan said, any of these will be fine.

 

[HuggerMugger]

So, what I'm hearing is; don't spend 3 times more for a FW800 enclosure, and just go with a USB 2.0?

 

[alphaod]

USB 2.0 should be enough. When faster drives come out, you'll probably want to upgrade the enclosure anyways (and USB 3.0 would probably be out by then).

The benefit to Firewire is the increased power draw which means you can power hungrier optical drives that may otherwise require a wall wart when plugged in via USB.