G-Tech, Fantom or OWC?

[buxtone17]

I'm looking at getting a pair of 500gb external hard drives to back up photos. I'm running a PowerBook G4 with a 1.5GHz processor and 1GB of RAM. Old, I know, but I don't have the cash for a new one.

Anyways, I've narrowed my search down to three HDs but I wanted to get some opinions before I buy:

-G-Technology G-Drive Q

-Fantom G-force Quad

-OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro

Your thoughts?

 

[TheStrudel]

They're all good picks. My Fantom triple interface runs as well as the day I bought it and is fairly speedy and well-designed, to boot. Only problem with it is sound. Its fan (always on) is louder than my mac pro.

 

[buxtone17]

They're all good picks. My Fantom triple interface runs as well as the day I bought it and is fairly speedy and well-designed, to boot. Only problem with it is sound. Its fan (always on) is louder than my mac pro.

Thanks for that.

Any suggestions for other products would be much appreciated as well.

 

[GregE]

How about this one with 2 1TB drives? Then you would have it in a RAID 1 so if a drive failed, you would still be good. You could format it into 2 500GB drives if you wanted.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax

 

[fa8362]

I buy Fantom only, never a problem. Don't buy a drive with a fan...too noisy. Shop around for price. I just bought a 1 TB Fantom Green drive for $124 (eSATA & USB), $99 after rebate (buy.com...NewEgg has it for $129), so that price at Amazon for only 500 gb is WAY too high.

 

[buxtone17]

How about this one with 2 1TB drives? Then you would have it in a RAID 1 so if a drive failed, you would still be good. You could format it into 2 500GB drives if you wanted.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax

I need to research RAID 1 more I suppose.

I know all about disk failure, but if something else goes wrong with a RAID drive, would the disks be safe? Is it possible that a power issue on a RAID drive could knock out both disks?

Either way, I think I feel more comfortable with separate disks in separate enclosures...

 

[fa8362]

Also, I know from personal experience that most raid drives sound like jet engines due to fan noise. Again, buy a fanless aluminum enclosure drive like the fantom you referenced...just don't get scammed on the price.

 

[kellen]

I just got the owc dual drive enclosure. Fan is rather loud. Luckily they sent
me the wrong one so I can exchange for free. Going to go with a single enclosure that doesn't have a fan. Way too loud!

 

[maestrokev]

I just got the owc dual drive enclosure. Fan is rather loud. Luckily they sent
me the wrong one so I can exchange for free. Going to go with a single enclosure that doesn't have a fan. Way too loud!

I second that, the OWC Mercury Elite-Al dual drive enclosures are way too noisy. Don't know why they don't use quieter fans. I have mine sitting behind my 24" iMac and the noise is still irritating.