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anyone have OWC Mercury Elite Pro -AL RAID FW800 Drive Enclosure for 2 SATA Drives

benlangdon

benlangdon

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 13, 2008
1,497
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anyone know anything about this?
i don't have raid is that a problem?
my comp specs are in my sig.
i want to combine my 500 and 120 because i need a case for my 120.

anyone know any better ones
 
benlangdon said:
anyone know anything about this?
i don't have raid is that a problem?
my comp specs are in my sig.
i want to combine my 500 and 120 because i need a case for my 120.
Click to expand...

By 'combine' do you mean (a) raid-span them to create one big drive, or (b) install two drives in one case and run them via firewire 800? If it's the latter you just need to install the drives, connect the cables and flip the switch (with sata there's no need to fool with master/slave jumpers as with IDE drives). Both drives will mount on your desktop.

anyone know any better ones
Click to expand...

Sure, you can install a dual sata card in your ExpressCard 34 slot and use one of OWC's dual sata enclosures instead (sata is much faster than firewire 800). I bought a 2-port esata express card for $20 recently - works great. For lower cost and reliability's sake you might want to stick with firewire 800, however. Good luck.
 
basura! said:
By 'combine' do you mean (a) raid-span them to create one big drive, or (b) install two drives in one case and run them via firewire 800? If it's the latter you just need to install the drives, connect the cables and flip the switch (with sata there's no need to fool with master/slave jumpers as with IDE drives). Both drives will mount on your desktop.



Sure, you can install a dual sata card in your ExpressCard 34 slot and use one of OWC's dual sata enclosures instead (sata is much faster than firewire 800). I bought a 2-port esata express card for $20 recently - works great. For lower cost and reliability's sake you might want to stick with firewire 800, however. Good luck.
Click to expand...

already tried an esata card and it just would not work. tried messeing with it for weeks and spent 4hours trouble shooting it at the mac store.

my main concern is that it says it is for raid.
i have a mbp and do not have a raid card.
i just need it for more storage.
also if it fits with a ide to sata adapter as one of my drives is an ide 120 gb wd caviar and the other drive is a 500 gb wd green drive or something.
 
benlangdon said:
anyone know anything about this?
i don't have raid is that a problem?
my comp specs are in my sig.
i want to combine my 500 and 120 because i need a case for my 120.

anyone know any better ones
Click to expand...

The RAID is built into the Mercury Elite Pro's controller, do you not need RAID on your computer. You can either have it as a raid set (preferably with 2 SATA drives of the same size) or as 2 separate drives. I have the ATA version of this device and I have it configured with 2 x 500GB HDD's in RAID 0, giving me 1TB of storage.
 
chas0001 said:
The RAID is built into the Mercury Elite Pro's controller, do you not need RAID on your computer. You can either have it as a raid set (preferably with 2 SATA drives of the same size) or as 2 separate drives. I have the ATA version of this device and I have it configured with 2 x 500GB HDD's in RAID 0, giving me 1TB of storage.
Click to expand...

ya i do not need raid (did you mean you do not need raid or do you not need raid?)
how much room is behind the drives as i would need to get an ide to sata adapter which is (asking other world computer how thick it is).
 
benlangdon said:
ya i do not need raid (did you mean you do not need raid or do you not need raid?)
how much room is behind the drives as i would need to get an ide to sata adapter which is (asking other world computer how thick it is).
Click to expand...

You do not need raid hardware in your computer to use the external drive. OS X does support software raid via Disk Utility but its generally slower than a hardware solution.

There is no room in the drive to have an IDE to SATA connector as the space is very tight. If your drives are ATA (IDE connector) why dont you get the ATA version instead? http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW912AL2/
 
chas0001 said:
You do not need raid hardware in your computer to use the external drive. OS X does support software raid via Disk Utility but its generally slower than a hardware solution.

There is no room in the drive to have an IDE to SATA connector as the space is very tight. If your drives are ATA (IDE connector) why dont you get the ATA version instead? http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW912AL2/
Click to expand...

http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/manuals/mercuryfirewire/owcmanme924al2web.pdf
on page 5 it looks like there is some room for the top drive.

:( if this doesn't work because i cannot find another drive that has fw800 and holds two drives and isn't $203942390

one drive is ata and one is ide
 
I don't see how you would benefit by RAID, especially if one drive is smaller than the other (and the have different connections). If you RAID 0 two drives, one 120GB and the other 500GB you will only have 2 X 120GB's = 240Gb's worth of space. The rest of the space is waisted.
 
What I can tell you is OWC sells quality goods backed by good service. I've bought from them many times and have always been pleased with result even when there was a problem.
 
chas0001 said:
I don't see how you would benefit by RAID, especially if one drive is smaller than the other (and the have different connections). If you RAID 0 two drives, one 120GB and the other 500GB you will only have 2 X 120GB's = 240Gb's worth of space. The rest of the space is waisted.
Click to expand...

no i do not want raid.
i do not need raid.
i just want an enclosure for 2 drives.
no raid.
nothing raid.
just using it to hold two drives instead of buying two enclosures.
that is why i was asking if you had to use raid to use this encloure.
i know almost nothing about raid.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1SC1/
do you think this would fit in the back of it?
in that page five picture it looks like it could.
 
Its really hard to tell from the picture.

Why don't you give MACSALES a ring and perhaps they may be able to help you further. As to speak to somebody who is more technical (not a sales person). They may even have something else that would suit you better.
 
I have this drive enclosure, and by default it keeps two drives as two drives.

The only problem is the aluminum case echos every little buzz, whirr, and click out the front of the chassis and the drive becomes VERY noisy. Keep that in mind. Two plastic cases would be a lot quieter, albeit twice as much space and power plugs used.

=)
 
bradbowl said:
I'm using a 4 drive Venus T4U enclosure I bought off the Egg. It was half the price as the OWC ones and works great. I don't notice any noise although I'm using only two drives (it fits 4). You may want to check that one out. There is also an eSATA one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332013
Click to expand...

well i never bought it because of insufficient funds
that 4 drive one is really nice, still would need a single enclosure as i cannot carry that around, and its only esata which i have an ibook and two pc's with no esata,
maybe raid on a mbp?
 
You are never going to find a case that holds 2 drives when one is IDE and one is SATA. THere is no room for an IDE-SATA convertor in a case.

Why not make life much simpler and get two cases, or just give up the smaller 120 IDE drive and just use one drive?
 
I have the OWC dual-drive in question. I love it. I recommend it whenever I can.

But CanadaRAM has the right of it as far as the IDE/SATA is concerned.
 
CanadaRAM said:
You are never going to find a case that holds 2 drives when one is IDE and one is SATA. THere is no room for an IDE-SATA convertor in a case.

Why not make life much simpler and get two cases, or just give up the smaller 120 IDE drive and just use one drive?
Click to expand...

ya thats how i have it now just really using the 500
and the 120 has images of all of my programs and boot disks of leapord and tiger and such, barely use it right now, the case on that one is pos
 
bradbowl said:
There is also a 4 drive USB 2.0 version:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332008

That's the one I use since my MBP does not have eSATA and this version is much less pricey. It is pretty heavy so I agree you can't carry it around with you. Although 2 drive RAID enclosures aren't that small and light either.
Click to expand...

usb is way to slow for two drives.
all you need is an esata express card
i will not recommend that as i have had 3 different cards and apple has been working with me to fix it for a while now. i even talk to the people helping me on their personal lines. its ridiculous, its supposed to work though
 
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