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FireWire Powered hard drive..

L

LeorD

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 29, 2008
38
0
I started working on the my new iMac(and first mac) and I've been looking for a firewire powered external hard drive but when i did little research on the web I found some hard ddrives but i dont know if they support time machine and generally mac..
I need some recommendations about a good firewire 400/800(whats the price differences?) 500GB-1TB but the most important is firewire powered

posted on the wrong forum olz move to the desktop imac forum..
 
With the rare exception, any external drive will work on a Mac, and be supported by Time Machine. However, in the size you are looking for, I would suspect that in the sizes you are looking for, bus-powered drives may be difficult to find. I would suggest looking at Newegg.com, MacSales.com, or TigerDirect.com and see what sort of solutions they have.

TEG
 
I use a Maxtor One Touch Plus 500GB for Time Machine and a 750GB WD MyBook for "offline" storage. The former uses FW400 and the latter FW800.
 
LeorD said:
Im looking for a 500GB Firewire only no need for usb..
Click to expand...


Typically all Firewire drives will be Firewire/USB drives.

Why would do you want a bus-powered firewire drive? Is portability an issue?

As one person said, it'll probably be hard finding a bus-powered firewire HD in the higher size you're looking for. LaCie has a 500 GB bus-power Firewire HD http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=11085 but LaCie is probably a bit more expensive. You can probably find cheaper.
 
LeorD said:
I started working on the my new iMac(and first mac) and I've been looking for a firewire powered external hard drive but when i did little research on the web I found some hard ddrives but i dont know if they support time machine and generally mac..
I need some recommendations about a good firewire 400/800(whats the price differences?) 500GB-1TB but the most important is firewire powered

posted on the wrong forum olz move to the desktop imac forum..
Click to expand...

Well as someone else said firewire powered devices will all be 2.5" drives, so that sure does limit your selections. Samsung makes one (5400 rpm like the majority of 2.5" drives, not 7200 like virtually all the commonly available 3.5" drives that would require a power adapter) which OWC sells with a firewire enclosure:

FW 400: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/HM500JIMFWU2/

or the preferred FW 800: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/HM500JIMF8U2/
 
cube said:
I think it has to be 2.5" to be bus-powered.
Click to expand...

Not true. Near enough any drive can that uses FireWire can be bus powered, doesn't matter if it's 2.5" or 3.5"
what's important is the current (mA) the device might draw from the bus. If you overload the bus, it could result in
an unstable system, lost lost of data! It's true that most 3.5" drives are powered with their own PSU,
however depending on the housing some will work via the FW Bus.
 
so i guess the two best options would be the LaCie and the DIY KIT right?.. does the my passport of wd is 2.5"?
 
I like my Lacie firewire drive , have both the powered desktop one and the portable one with the orange rubber around the case - never had problems with it either - quite small and portable and fast as everything

I've got the older one but will upgrading size-wise to the newer large ones around Xmas myself

Just a recommendation for the Lacie as my portable firewire 800 one has worked great as a boot drive also when I've messed around with different OS X installs

Also feels quite durable
 
ok but the wd my passport is 2.5" right? my dad have inr and im looking for something at the same size and firewire powered only with 500GB..
btw is there a big difference between firewire 400 and 800?
 
kahine said:
Fairly sure 500gb and firewire only powered the Lacie is your only option
Click to expand...

Actually the links I posted to the Samsung 500Gb Kits with Enclosures from OWC (way back up in message #8 in this thread) are a very attractive alternative to Lacie- and are available with FW400 OR FW800.
 
LeorD said:
ok but the wd my passport is 2.5" right? my dad have inr and im looking for something at the same size and firewire powered only with 500GB..
btw is there a big difference between firewire 400 and 800?
Click to expand...

Yes Passports are 2.5". Take a look again at my previous post (#8) for links to OWC's 500Gb Samsung firewire powered solutions from probably the best Mac accessory suppliers out there in my opinion.

Keep in mind that of the three models of Passports Western Digital offers (Elite, Essential andd Studio) only the Studio has Firewire- and it is only available up to 320Gb.

As far as FW400 vs FW800 yes there is a huge difference. FW 400 has a maximum transfer rate of 400Mbits/s while FW800 has a max transfer rate of 800Mbits/s. In the real world too (not just the specifications world) the speed difference is substantial.
 
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