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Inexpensive 2-bay enclosure with FW800
- Thread starter aiolos
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How cheap? Nothing with FW800 is cheap.
This one works well, but in JBOD mode it won't sleep. That's its only flaw, and it's possible it's been fixed (mine is an early 2010 version).
http://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/RS-M2QO.html
This one works well, but in JBOD mode it won't sleep. That's its only flaw, and it's possible it's been fixed (mine is an early 2010 version).
http://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/RS-M2QO.html
Other World Computer (OWC) has some nice ones. Can't think of the model off hand but I've got one that I'm very happy with. Seems rock solid.
I just got https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEPT934AL2C/ for about $100 a few weeks ago and I love it.
I was considering http://www.synology.com/us/products/ds210j/index.php for about $200. IT's not FW800 but still faster reads times than USB and a lot more flexible.
My only problem with an enclosure like that is that it only has a 1 year warranty, and I don't want to pay $150 for an enclosure that only has 1 year of support. I guess if I want a cheap option I'm stuck with USB 2.0 (at least until 3.0 becomes the standard and then there'll be cheap 2-bay solutions).
USB is cheap... but it's slow. FW800 is more than twice as fast as USB 2.0. If you are moving small amounts of data around, USB 2.0 is fine. For Time Machine backups, it's fine.. as long as you don't mind waiting the better part of a day for a full restore. For any interactive use with files larger than a gig, USB is gonna hurt.
OWC seems to have the best options for FW800 enclosures. Only 1 year warranty but practically speaking, the only thing that can go wrong in an enclosure is the fan. As I think about about, I've never even heard of one going bad that wasn't bad to start.
If you find any place than OWC, please let me know.... I couldn't unless I was going to spend a few hundred.
By the way, I personally would do NAS before USB 2.0. USB 2.0 is 480 Mbs and not efficient vs 1000 Mbs ethernet. It's a no brainer to me. The key to NAS though is knowing that the NAS units that you get from Best Buy and the like are almost always VERY slow. You'll have to spend more to get one with a more powerful processor and better features. The better ones can sustain over 500 Mbs reads. It's not FW800 but it's better than USB 2.0 AND you can share it with other devices, share media to your Xbox or PS3 and you can access your data wirelessly.