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External Firewire Drive : Which to buy?

sphereboy

sphereboy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 10, 2002
302
1
MIAMI.FL.USA
Any recomendations on external firewire hard drives?

Who are the good brands to stick with. Who sucks?

Any information would be useful.
Thanks
 
I hear lots of good things about the lacie drives, and I personally have had no problems at all with my VST (now smartdisk) 30G full-height drive. Bright Red Drives Rule.
 
Originally posted by peterjhill
How about an iPod 20GB ;-) Good question, i have thought about one also. A nice 160GB drive would do just fine.
Click to expand...

I know. I thought about that and it would definately justify buying an iPod..but i feel that it is too expensive right now.

I'm gonna read up on these Lacie's you guys are recomending.
 
Originally posted by sphereboy



I'm gonna read up on these Lacie's you guys are recomending.
Click to expand...

SAY NO TO LACIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

don't buy Lacies 60GB or 80GB firewire drives. Our college has had problems with them. If for any reason at all the drives are not moved to the trash before they are unplugged, the drive will need to be initialized the next time you use it. Initialize is a nice computer term for you're f*cked and you jsut lost all your data. I haven't dealt with the 120Gb drive so I can't complain about that one. So if you promise to always throw away the drive icon before you unplug then you should be allright. But if your comp ever freezes, or looses power during a storm or if you simply unplug without thinking twice about it, then kiss your stuff goodbye.

Tyler

My friend actually just bought a 120GB WD drive for his PB, so we'll see how well that one works. I still say the safest bet is an iPod.
 
i have a 160GB maxtor drive. it's been wonderful. it's held up through a lot of brutal video editing sessions.

or the other hand, i had two VST drives prior to the maxtor drive. they both went bad. the drives themselves are fine, but there's a little fan built in to the case that never shuts off. that burns out eventually and you're up a creek then. :(
 
TyleRomeo, this is what is supposed to happen with Hard Drives, at least to my knowledge. When I use Firewire Target Disk mode with my iBook, I can transfer files back and forth no problem, then drag the Firewire Hard Disk icon to the Trash, as you, again, are supposed to do.
 
I have a Maxtor 80GB 5400 rpm drive but, from all the complaints I've seen (and minor things I've had), I wouldn't recommend it.

APS Tech. has solid technology. If you're in the mood to learn a little, buy an ADS FireWire kit and an ATA-compatible drive and put it together yourself. You can save some, get the drive mechanism you want, and learn while looking inside the box. :)
 
Originally posted by King Cobra
TyleRomeo, this is what is supposed to happen with Hard Drives, at least to my knowledge. When I use Firewire Target Disk mode with my iBook, I can transfer files back and forth no problem, then drag the Firewire Hard Disk icon to the Trash, as you, again, are supposed to do.
Click to expand...

i agree with you king cobra

but I still wouldnt buy Lacie, if you can have internals, then stick with them. I don't trust anything besides apple's iPod.

Maxtor and Western Digital are brand names for a reason. if you have to go firewire at least go with one of them, if the iPod is too much.

tyler
 
iPod is too little, too much for me. Too little space and too much money. I was just looking at the Iomega HDD Firewire 120GB Drive and it seems pretty good. It's got enough space to back up my entire hard drive hard on (with space to spare) at a reasonable price. Anyone else know anything about this drive? Is it reliable? :rolleyes:
 
i had a look at external HD's a while ago and kept hearing that the ones with the Oxford 911 chipset are the best.

also, have you considered buying a external enclosure and getting a HD sererately, putting it in yourself? it might be worth it...$$$:D
 
Lacie 120GB is a Dream

I have to admit - 120+ Gigs, portable, firewire... it's perfect. It didn't cost me an arm and a leg either. under $300. I recently had to back an entire Mac up on it - and it was quick & only took up about 10% of the drive.

Now I have an iPod as well, and thats perfect for small stuff, working files between the office and home, etc. But I am having a party with Lacie at 7200rpm.
 
Remember it's also easy (and cheap) to build your own. Somewhere like newegg.com will sell you a bare 120GB WD drive with 8MB cache for $160 or so (for $106 for the 80GB WD with 8MB cache), then choose the enclosure you like the most.

I've got two enclosures at the moment. An IceCube case (at least I think that's the name) which can be had for about $80 or $90, and a very nice (and rather expensive at $199) Granite Digital FireVue Smart IDE case with LCD panel, built-in diagnostics, built-in power supply (i.e. no power brick), muffin fan for cooling, etc.

Both are Oxford 911 based, both are nice and fast, but the Granite runs cooler, has a built-in screensaver for the LCD panel, and maintains stats on average and peak transfer rates, as well as letting you do stuff like verify, reformat, and so forth without actually having the drive connected to anything.
 
Originally posted by cb911
i had a look at external HD's a while ago and kept hearing that the ones with the Oxford 911 chipset are the best.

also, have you considered buying a external enclosure and getting a HD sererately, putting it in yourself? it might be worth it...$$$:D
Click to expand...

Actually I hadn't considered this option. This seems like the best bet. If i'm not mistaken can you use any old hard drive in one of these enclosures?

So far i found this: http://www.firewiremax.com/35prosfirdri.html

Here's that Western Digital 80GB .. looks very nice Western Digital

Firewire Depot

This would save me a few bucks.
 
i like my western digital 80 gig drive a lot, its gone through some intense use, too... 2 other things i love about it are its size (the enclosure is just a little bit larger than a normal dektop drive) and there's no fan... 7200 rpm as well.

kungfu
 
avoid LACIE

Until you see actual test, I would avoid LACIE. I have had some problems with the 80gb model which I really did not expet. Moreover, when I run tests (using software that came with the drive) write speeds are pathetic - way to slow.
Do some more research, my opinion is with hard drive you want to be safe and safe and I am sure at this point in time there are some valid and reliable FW hard disks. There is also a Co that makes pretty cool FW devices check it out at http://www.wiebetech.com/

good luck
 
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