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Best FireWire 800 enclosure for 1Tb Hitachi drive

Gjardharr

Gjardharr

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Two weeks ago I've purchased a brand new 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 in order to use it as an external media and TM backups storage. But both MacAlly G-S350SUA and Thermaltake ST0008 enclosures won't works flawlessly with my drive inside: the disk mounts and works fine until I leave it to itself. Then, whilst trying to copy any file to the disk, Finder will stop and report a '-50 error'. No way to make it back to work or even unmount. If I try to unmount it twice or so, Finder crashes.
So, I suppose, the problem lies in the power supply of these enclosures. I'm looking forward to your advice, guys: what external enclosure with FW-800 should I try with my Hitachi drive? What is your experience?
 
-50 paramErr Error in user parameter list

How are you sure it's the power supply? Personally, I would first look at the hard drive itself. Try to zero out the data and see what happens. If it fails after a certain point, it's the hard drive. If it doesn't fail, reformat and try transferring again.

PS: Zeroing out the data takes a nice long time, especially on a 1TB drive. You should do it overnight.
 
buddyguyman said:
-50 paramErr Error in user parameter list

How are you sure it's the power supply? Personally, I would first look at the hard drive itself. Try to zero out the data and see what happens. If it fails after a certain point, it's the hard drive. If it doesn't fail, reformat and try transferring again.
Click to expand...

Already performed zeroing and reformatting (FAT, HFS and HFS+), no failures. Also, tested it as the second HDD at my friend's PC desktop and it worked just fine.
 
buddyguyman said:
How odd! I'm still not sold on the power supply theory, but that's not the point. Are both of these enclosures new?
Click to expand...

Yes, they are. I purchased MacAlly box online and waited two weeks of shipping just to find out this issue. Then I purchased Thermaltake at a local store and now I'm going to return it.

Thanks for your recommendation. Just another two weeks of waiting...
 
I've been running a Rosewill enclosure for about a year, almost 24/7, with a 750 Seagate. Last week, I swapped in a 1TB WD Caviar Black. Still running fine. Comes with cables and metal stand. No temp problems with it and it's fanless.

Based on that experience (and that of one of their 2.5" FW800 enclosures), I'd recommend that model. OWC is also at the top of my short list.
 
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