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Sent the drives back on Saturday, got my refund last night. Kills me that I'm out essentially the cost of one of these enclosures, but the auction deal had the buyer paying to ship back.

Anyway…Took your advice. But I got a Thermaltake BlacX Duet instead of two singles.

Thermaltake's site says the BlacX Duet can use read/write both drives simultaneously.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/141338385377?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

MODS! Not my auction!

The Duet is nice and it will read/write from both but of course the speeds will not be great considering it will be over USB 2.0 (unless of course you have an eSATA to Firewire cable happening). If it works out fine for you then great! Otherwise, I would recommend going with the one from OWC. It's a little bit more expensive but the I/O capabilities are great.

OWC docking station
 
The Duet is nice and it will read/write from both but of course the speeds will not be great considering it will be over USB 2.0 (unless of course you have an eSATA to Firewire cable happening). If it works out fine for you then great! Otherwise, I would recommend going with the one from OWC. It's a little bit more expensive but the I/O capabilities are great.

OWC docking station
Well, I already bought the Duet off eBay. $24.

USB 2.0 is plenty fast. The drives that will be in there are for Time Machine backups and the previous enclosures were USB 2.0.

However, since you mentioned an eSATA to FW cable (I guess those exist) that's something to look into. My new Sonnet card is USB2.0/FW400. Although technically, USB 2.0 would be faster.
 
Well, I already bought the Duet off eBay. $24.

USB 2.0 is plenty fast. The drives that will be in there are for Time Machine backups and the previous enclosures were USB 2.0.

However, since you mentioned an eSATA to FW cable (I guess those exist) that's something to look into. My new Sonnet card is USB2.0/FW400. Although technically, USB 2.0 would be faster.

Oh I still think that what you bought is totally fine! That's pretty much what I have except for mine being a DS for a single drive. I love it and it has been with me since 2009 and used for every Mac I have owned.

They don't "exactly" exist. It would have to be part of the universal drive adapter which makes it kind of exist. I think.

How would usb 2.0 be faster than FW400? I know the max for both which would suggest faster, but even though it's a usb card, wouldn't that still be sharing the usb bus with the rest of the machine and essentially slow it down? Or is it because it's in an expansion card that guarantees a sustained transfer rate higher than FW400?
 
"Real world" experience tells me that FW400 is generally faster than USB 2.0, although I don't have any numbers to back this up.

For most uses, I think that they're actually really close, but FW seems to have the edge in sustained transfer of large volumes of data.

Of course, there's no contest between FW800 and USB 2.0, nor is there any contest between any iteration of FW that actually made to the market and USB 3.0. The sheer speed of USB 3.0 makes up for any overhead losses inherent in USB.

I just wish that there was some way we could get USB 3.0 on our G4s :) . I would also like to know if there's some way to get it on my late '05 G5(which has PCIe), although I doubt that any sort of support exists in 10.5 for it.

At least I could theoretically get it on my Macbook Pro, although I've been a bit shy about plunking down the $200+ for one of the solutions that would make it possible, especially when FW800 is "fast enough" for Time Machine and other data transfer uses I have.
 
How would usb 2.0 be faster than FW400? I know the max for both which would suggest faster, but even though it's a usb card, wouldn't that still be sharing the usb bus with the rest of the machine and essentially slow it down? Or is it because it's in an expansion card that guarantees a sustained transfer rate higher than FW400?
FW400 is 400mbps.
USB 2.0 is 480mbps.

"Technically" USB 2.0 is faster than FW400 by 80mbps. In a lab. In optimal conditions.

Real world, it's been my experience that FW400 is faster than USB 2.0 - all things considered. However, it really does not matter. What I am using these drives for is the occasional TM backup that will occupy the drives for a short amount of time and generally result with less than 1GB of data transferred - most of the time probably less than 250mb. This is one instance where super speed really isn't necessary and "good enough" is acceptable to me. Hell, if it was USB 1.0 I'd be fine. TM backups really do not take much time to complete if everything is set up right.
 
TM backups really do not take much time to complete if everything is set up right.

Unless you go several months without doing one, in which case they take a while :rolleyes:

That reminds me, now that I'm in full-blown dissertation writing mode, I need to hook up my time machine drive to my MBP today.

Thank goodness Dropbox is keeping PPC support alive through May, as I'll be done with my dissertation by then. For the time being, having a copy of the document(along with my reference library and references) readily accessible and up to date across multiple computers is a life saver.
 
True. :D

In which case though, I'll just have to wait.

Good luck on your dissertation!

Thanks-I met with my advisor today to set up a timeline. There are four people in my group graduating this semester, so he's pushing us to give him dates and stick to them.

Fortunately for me, about half of it is already more-or-less written. The unfortunate part of that is that it's in the form of papers that are ready for publication(and can be copied and pasted)...my advisor has had rev. 5 of one of them since last October, and I'm still waiting to get it back as I'd like to submit before I defend.

Whatever happens with that, though, I'm locking myself in the room with my Quicksilver tomorrow(with an AEKII connected to it) and not coming out until I have the introduction written :) .
 
The Duet is nice and it will read/write from both but of course the speeds will not be great considering it will be over USB 2.0 (unless of course you have an eSATA to Firewire cable happening). If it works out fine for you then great! Otherwise, I would recommend going with the one from OWC. It's a little bit more expensive but the I/O capabilities are great.

OWC docking station

eSATA to FIREWIRE CABLE?! :eek: Such things exist?! How did I not know?! :eek:
Edit: no they don't exist so watdaheckrutalkingabout? :confused:
 
eSATA to FIREWIRE CABLE?! :eek: Such things exist?! How did I not know?! :eek:
Edit: no they don't exist so watdaheckrutalkingabout? :confused:
He might have been kidding, or just didn't know. redcroissant is cool. On the other hand, he works for Best Buy so maybe he's got a recent line on cables?
 
He might have been kidding, or just didn't know. redcroissant is cool. On the other hand, he works for Best Buy so maybe he's got a recent line on cables?

No eSATA and FireWire are different interfaces so there would need to be a converter chip.
 
eSATA to FIREWIRE CABLE?! :eek: Such things exist?! How did I not know?! :eek:
Edit: no they don't exist so watdaheckrutalkingabout? :confused:

No, no, no. I know that they don't exist and that's why I said that they "kind of exist." You would have to use a bridge of sorts (the universal drive adapter along with the external docking station from OWC) to make it happen. Even that doesn't create the solution of an eSATA to FW interface (which would be awesome).
 
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