chipsets
I am not sure how much they matter anymore, but with firewire (at its infancy), chipsets mattered very much. I read many tests on macintouch about it.
Many tests were made. In the beginning..long long ago
5400RPM drives with an Oxford 911 Chipset had a much faster transfer rate than 7200RPM drives with inferior chipsets. Besting them by 10 MB/s or more...
Nowadays, chipsets have matured and don't matter as much, although I'd feel better having an oxford chipset.
Most external drive manufactures don't mentions chipset. Lacie,Maxtor, Western Digital, etc....
But, most resellers always mention the chipset used, OWC, FWDepot, etc...
Also
Many people had FW problems updating from OS 10.2.x to 10.3. Certain Oxford chips had problems while others didn't. Same with Initio (sp?) The problems were fixed quickly, but it was confusing for many people for several weeks.
Hopefully these problems won't exist with 10.4 Tiger.
BTW, Always heard good things about Lacie, but they seem expensive.
Last week, at Apple Store 120GB FW for $199. I went to Staples and got Maxtor 160 GB for $70, then to CompUSA and got a FW400 case for $50.
120 vs 200, not counting gas and 5 minutes to install drive into case.
peace