I'm looking for a mass storage option and I've got about $150 USD to spend on it... I really want to get FW800 for the speed. Anyone have a good drive to recommend? The highest I can find is a 500gb for 139.... that's just not good enough. 
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Best inexpensive FW800 ext. HDD?
- Thread starter tbobmccoy
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I'm looking for a mass storage option and I've got about $150 USD to spend on it... I really want to get FW800 for the speed. Anyone have a good drive to recommend? The highest I can find is a 500gb for 139.... that's just not good enough.
Look on newegg for the FW800 enclosure and then simply buy whatever size SATA drive you want and stuff it in there.
Apple is killing off FW on their product line in favor of USB3 so I'm not sure if it's worth the money anymore.
Seeing as there are currently NO USB3 Macs out there, that is a bit premature, wouldn't you say?
Its all about getting the right FW chipset (Oxford). Unfortunately with FW800, you kind of get what you pay for.
If an Oxford FW chipset is what I need, do you have any specific HD recommendations? I don't want to spend $ on a POS that'll not give me the speed I need or break easily. I already had to return one drive because it had an intermittent connection issue
You should be able to get a 1TB FW800 Seagate or WD HDD for your price at Best Buy, Newegg or many other websites. Shop around.
I'll believe it when the next Mac Pro ships without it, which will not happen since Firewire is entrenched in the video world and in digital audio to a lesser extent.
Especially given that Firewire 3200, should it come out, is effortlessly backwards compatible and uses the exact same connection.
And even if that were true, it's still arguably worth the money, as it outperforms everything you can have on a Mac without installing an expansion card, and eSATA tends to be kind of flaky on OS X.
Also, firewire target disk mode?
A quality FW800 enclosure will cost a good amount of money. The FW800 chipset is expensive, and the end user pays for it. We (Icy Dock) have a couple different FW800 enclosures for a single drive, and they are on Newegg for about 70-80 bucks, and then you still need to get the drive.
/shameless plug
I would definitely agree that you will spend about 90% less time troubleshooting/dealing with issues with FW800 over eSATA though with OSX.
And I doubt Apple will ever fully adopt USB3, seeing as they are supposedly developing both FW3200 and a new interface that will be combining about 3 or 4 different interfaces into a single connection. However, they are in bed with Intel now, so USB3 just might be on the horizon. Either way, they are not saying anything about it, as usual.
/shameless plug
I would definitely agree that you will spend about 90% less time troubleshooting/dealing with issues with FW800 over eSATA though with OSX.
And I doubt Apple will ever fully adopt USB3, seeing as they are supposedly developing both FW3200 and a new interface that will be combining about 3 or 4 different interfaces into a single connection. However, they are in bed with Intel now, so USB3 just might be on the horizon. Either way, they are not saying anything about it, as usual.
OWC is rocksolid, good pricing
Might not be the cheapest, but if it's important data, I can't rave enough about OWC drives.
I work for several tv/film/photography professionals who travel with external hard-drives and really don't take good care of them. The only brand I've ever recommend is OWC, they are just so strong and durable, never a single glitch with them (these are standard issue for every world-travelling photojournalist I've ever known). Also, they come with great cables, reliable power-supplies, and many configurations, eSATA, FW800, FW400, USB 2.0.
They have a **** load of options for you: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
My favorite: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/eliteclassic
-just bought the 2TB version last week for myself.
Might not be the cheapest, but if it's important data, I can't rave enough about OWC drives.
I work for several tv/film/photography professionals who travel with external hard-drives and really don't take good care of them. The only brand I've ever recommend is OWC, they are just so strong and durable, never a single glitch with them (these are standard issue for every world-travelling photojournalist I've ever known). Also, they come with great cables, reliable power-supplies, and many configurations, eSATA, FW800, FW400, USB 2.0.
They have a **** load of options for you: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
My favorite: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/eliteclassic
-just bought the 2TB version last week for myself.
Damn that's news to me. I also heard Ford is switching it's entire line to maglev based vehicles starting 2009 (?).
Thanks for the input everyone: I just decided to get an iomega eGo 500gb FW400/800/USB2.0 drive for now. Found a deal at a local shop for 89 bucks and pounced. I'll use the savings to get a FW enclosure later on and when I get an SSD for this MBP, I'll swap the 500gb drive I have in here into the enclosure as well.