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External Firewire HDD 2 bay enclosures

S

spiritlevel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 5, 2007
378
60
I need a 2TB external firewire 800 drive and am considering building my own.

I would like a good looking enclosure that matches my mac pro.

My favourite looking drives are the G-Raid2 ones from G-Tech which I would buy if they weren't so expensive!

http://www.g-raid.com/Products/G-RAID2.cfm

So my first question is - does anyone sell enclosures like this - ie horizontal aluminium cheesegrater.

It seems to be much cheaper to buy this stuff in the US (I'm based in the UK), you also get more choice - BUT, if I buy from the US what do I need to worry about re power supply etc as we are 240v over here and they are 120v I think?

Finally, can anyone recommend some good links for buying enclosures only in the UK

thanks
 
Thanks elkeye,

Brilliant links - exactly what I was looking for!

Do you know what the main differences are in the new one? they look pretty similar - the new one has a smart fan and rubber feet but not sure that's all - smartfan should be good for keeping it quiet tho', especially with a couple of Spinpoint F1's in there.

thanks a lot man!
 
The hard drives are mounted to the enclosure in "R2" with a silicone rubber ring (to prevent vibration and reduce noise according the mfg).

This is an additional feature over "R1".

I also like the idea of the smart fan in "R2" which you already noted.

Looks like the chip set is the same in both (Oxford 924 DSB).

It seems that MacPower TyTech has numerous "OEM partners" in the USA that sell the Taurus enclosure (or a very similar one) under various brand names. If anyone knows of a source in the USA for the MacPower TyTech "Taurus RAID II" enclosure, please advise.
 
Thanks for the link to the chart - very useful.

My new mac pro is still 3-5 weeks away so hopefully the Taurus Raid 2's will be in by then. I take it you are looking to do the same thing - what drives are you going for?

As this is the first time I will be DIYing it, do the enclosures come with trays or mountpoints ready for the drives? ie is it just a case of buying the enclosure and the drives and screwing them in or will I need some "extra bits"?

In my search I came across the one below which I probably would have gone with if you hadn't alerted me to the Taurus.

http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/Enclosures-and-Cases/sc884/p165.aspx

I quite like the industrial look of it (although the drive fronts look a bit "unfinished"?) and you can just slide the disks in but it's a fair bit more expensive and I think I prefer the taurus anyway.

Thanks again for all your help.
 
Take a look at the Taurus manual and it will show you exactly how to install the hard drives in the enclosure.

http://www.macpower.com.tw/files/manual/taurusraid_en.pdf

I am personally trying to decide between the Taurus RAID II enclosure and the Burly 2-bay Hotswap Firewire + USB2 enclosure.

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/firewire/BurlyMultiDriveFWHS.php

I like the size of the Taurus enclosure but like the large cooling fan in the Burly enclosure (in addition to the removable tray system).

To date, I have been unable to find a vendor/re-seller of the Taurus RAID II enclosure in the USA.

I got to believe that MacPower TyTech "OEM partners" in the USA are selling off their inventory of the prior model since the updated model was only announced on 4 December 2007 by MacPower.

http://www.macpower.com.tw/news/2007/12/04/1183

The Stardom ST3620 enclosure you are considering looks a lot like the SansDigital MobileStor MS2C1.

http://www.sansdigital.com/mobilestor/ms2c1.html
 
Before you mentioned it I was avoiding large fans - I was thinking the larger it is, the more noisy - but it's probably the other way round of course - bigger fan shifts more air with less movement.

The Stardom ST3620 does look like that SansDigital one doesn't it! I saw that you can get it in the US here slightly cheaper

http://www.cooldrives.com/sata-to-firewire-enclosure-raid.html $200

But the one with the LCD which you can see here

http://www.cooldrives.com/dusahddfiusb.html $369.98

is a lot cheaper at SansDigital

http://www.sansdigital.com/mobilestor/ms2ub.html $305.00

Another question: Can you tell me what the difference between JBOD and Raid 0 is? I know that both let you see it as one drive, which is what I want, and I guess Raid 0 is faster? but other than that whats the difference? why would I use JBOD instead of Raid 0?

And is it true that Samsung drives are the quietest?

you have really been a great help - thank you.
 
Not an expert on RAID, nor would I try and recommend one hard drive mfg. over another.

You may find the following information of interest.

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/satadrives.php
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/guides/ZeroDrives.php
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/guides/PhotoStorage.php
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/guides/PhotoStorage_pg2.php

If price was no object, I guess I would buy a min. of four "enterprise class" hard drives from Seagate or Hitachi. However, I found the Hitachi-DeskStar 750 GB Hard Drive (Model 0A34914) on sale for US$ 169.99 and decided to forego the 1 TB Hitachi-UltraStar or the 1TB Seagate 7200.11.

My present plan is to put two Hitachi-DeskStar 750 GB Hard Drives in a dual firewire 800 enclosure and use them as two independent drives: one for "Time Machine" and the other to make a second backup of any critical data.

The choices one has to make. :)
 
Hey guys,

I ran across this post researching the exact same thing, and coming upon the same decisions :p what set up do I want? Do I really want RAID1 (I do), how much? Prebuilt? Add my own drives? Price? Aesthetics? etc.

So, this was back in Jan, its been about 2 months, have either of y'all purchased the R2 or something like it? Hows it working, etc?
 
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