Firewire drives - your recommendations

[kerb]

Hi

I'm looking into a firewire HD for my Powerbook 12" off which I can boot Panther, that is assuming it will improve system speed when using the PB as a desktop.
Looking for a good quality, fast and reliable drive of about 100gb big.

Any that you lot recommend?

 

[pdpfilms]

Other World Computing

OWC has some good firewire drives...
I've got two Mercury Elites, which look nice, are relatively small, and have no fan, making them silent. I think OWC's also got some portable (firewire-powered) drives, but i don't know about 100gb.
I would also like to tell you to steer clear from EZQuest....I should've guessed from the name. It was basically a toaster-sized jet engine that occaisionally got wires caught up in its fan creating freakishly loud buzzes, chirps and whirls. I ended up ripping the case off the drive (EVERY SINGLE SCREW stripped) and bought a mercury case for it. Now it's stacked up nicely next to the other, creating no sound, and working perfectly for my most demanding video editing needs.
-klon

 

[realityisterror]

i've heard good things about lacie's drives... but they are somewhat overpriced...

if you're on a tight budget, you may want to buy a regular desktop hard drive and then buy a firewire/usb2 enclosure for it....

reality

 

[Brother Michael]

i've heard good things about lacie's drives... but they are somewhat overpriced...

if you're on a tight budget, you may want to buy a regular desktop hard drive and then buy a firewire/usb2 enclosure for it....

reality

I am going to do that as I only have 15 gig on my iBook. Only issue is that they require then a seperate power source, not a big deal if it will be used at a desktop.

Mike

 

[puckhead193]

is there such a drive with both firewire 400 and 800?

 

[Counterfit]

is there such a drive with both firewire 400 and 800?

Yes. The OWC Mercury Elite Pro comes in FW400/800 and FW400/800+USB2.0/1.1 models. The one with USB usually runs about $10 more than the non-USB model, but for some reason, you can't get bigger than 250GB from them without the USB...
I have the non-USB model myself, 120GB, connected via FW800, and it rocks! I would suggest you don't bother with the 120GB model though, it's only $4 less than the 160GB... weird.

Another note about OWC drives, they come with about 1GB of stuff on them, which is part of their test routine. It includes many Apple commercials, a bunch of switch ads (but no janie porche ), a little bit of shareware for OS 9, a bunch more for OS X, some Apple updaters, 38 pieces of software from NewerTech, and two separate versions of XPostFacto (2.2.5 and a recent alpha build of 3.0, mine is 3.0a11)

 

[Lewisham]

Not Maxtor

Don't buy Maxtor. I've had two of them blow up in the space of a year (6 months a piece). A friend has had similar problems. I sent the first one back under warranty (shipping not refunded), a replacement was shipped. The second one I just thought "Screw it" and bought a Lacie instead.

Ebuyer.co.uk have some decent deals on Lacie Porsche designed ones, and they're pretty small too. And silver, so look helluva cool with your PB. You pay more for Firewire over USB2. I took the USB2 in the end because I'm:

a) a tight wad
b) only using the drive for media storage

Firewire has the slight edge, so it might be worth it if you're planning to boot from it.

TTFN
Chris