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firewire 800 hdd enclosure ( in EU! )?? (SOLVED)

legreve

legreve

macrumors regular
Original poster
Its been asked over the years but never too many answers. But maybe now is the time?

Anyone know where this is available? Should be suitable for 2.5" and be powered through the port. I spent so.much time yesterday looking but everyone seems to only be selling that pc crap usb 2.0 🙂
 
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EU is always the problem.

Still the best bet (not cheap with shipping) is ordering this type from OWC (they have resellers in Europe, UK for example not sure about Denmark).

FW800
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MSTG800U2K/

prod_on-the-go_triplebare.jpg
 
Christ just looking again, seems shipping is same price as the enclosure more or less $60+ 😱

Best have a friend in the US take delivery for you, and have them ship it over in a flat rate USPS Global box for $14. That's how I always roll when certain US companies' shipping rates try to stiff me.
 
All I know is that there are a couple of resellers in the UK that sell OWC stuff - made some enquiries a few years back. Problem being they too order direct from the US and usually pass on the expensive price.

Sorry can't recall names as such but a search should bring them up. Use OWC or Newertech as search terms as these too are sourced from the US.

My suggested route (friend in the US) is probably the best though.
 
Icy Box (made in Germany) also make a range of enclosures, including FW800 ones. Been using them for years. They may have one that suits your needs.
 
There was a reseller on eBay UK a few months ago selling OWC stuff, but I don't think they imported any of the FW800 versions. If you Google "Mercury Elite" it may give you some results, e.g.:

http://www.macupgrade.be/index.php/cPath/3?osCsid=pgogt0aeqdhm1rcukkcf3tld47


From what I've seen, for the price of a FW enclosure and a decent drive to go in it you may as well just buy a complete drive, like the G-Tech mini, with a 500GB 7200rpm drive in it already e.g. :

http://www.jigsaw24.com/product-details/x132axa

You may even be able to swap drives yourself if you need to, it looks like it's screwed together.
 
Mike Oxard said:
There was a reseller on eBay UK a few months ago selling OWC stuff, but I don't think they imported any of the FW800 versions. If you Google "Mercury Elite" it may give you some results, e.g.:

http://www.macupgrade.be/index.php/cPath/3?osCsid=pgogt0aeqdhm1rcukkcf3tld47


From what I've seen, for the price of a FW enclosure and a decent drive to go in it you may as well just buy a complete drive, like the G-Tech mini, with a 500GB 7200rpm drive in it already e.g. :

http://www.jigsaw24.com/product-details/x132axa

You may even be able to swap drives yourself if you need to, it looks like it's screwed together.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the tips guys! And keep em coming from different areas, Im sure there are other people who's wondering where and what to buy.

I eventually found a seller in Denmark that had a product I can use... and by the way, thanks for the Icy Box tip, that was what lead me to this item.

So for Danish people wanting to buy an external casing and you're not happy with the puny usb 2.0, shg.dk has an RaidSonic item with FW800:

21-uIusDAJL.jpg

External 2.5" casing.

It looks nice and will probably suit me needs.

The reason I didn't want to go and buy another drive ( I know I can get a Lacie or WD for a little more with FW800 ) is because I'm removing the stock drive, 750gb 5400 from my MBP and putting in an SSD, in the optibay a WD Black S will go, so I had to use the extra drive for something and figured I might as well just use it as external storage.

Otherwise yes... If I didn't have the drive already, I would indeed buy a real external drive. I just hate letting things go to waste 🙂
 
Update:

Instead of shg.dk I went ahead and got the enclosure from Amazon.co.uk.
I still went for the Icybox as seen above, and I must say I'm pretty happy with that purchase.

The drive is nice and sleek. Goes well with the MBP style wise.
It comes with 3 ports and 3 cables for those ports: USB, FW400 and FW800.
It is powered through the port, so no additional power supply is needed.

Mounting the internal drive in the enclosure is as easy as 1-2-3.
You slide the top lid back and lift it up. Turn the drive the right way up, slide it all the way in and put the lid back on.
The you fasten the lid with the screws that came with the kit. (classic electronic philips head screws).
That's it... Took 2 seconds to format the drive in disk utility and atm I'm finally offloading my image storage to the drive.
There's no active cooling in the enclosure, but there is unnoticeable vents all the way around the enclosure.

The kit also includes a nice little neoprene sleeve for the enclosure.

Oh... the drive I put in the enclosure is the Apple stock 750 gb 5400 rpm drive. It's taking me around 50 minuter to copy 130gb to it from the desktop.

So all in all... I would indeed recommend this enclosure for anyone who doesn't want to waste a perfectly fine stock drive that has been replaced 🙂
 
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