What's a good, sturdy FireWire or Thunderbolt drive / drive enclosure?

[Leek]

I have an HGST 7K1000 drive in a generic USB enclosure and the USB 2.0 on my 2011 MBP feels pretty slow and underpowered for it. This morning I was a few clicks away from ordering a refurb LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt drive to improve the setup. But then I saw the reviews on Apple's site and thought "Jesus, I never even thought reviews for an enclosure could be this bad. I better do some more research." So, current FireWire / Thunderbolt storage users, what has given you a stable connection? I should mention I don't really care what drive is inside, I'll be pawning it and installing my HGST no matter what.

 

[hfg]

I was surprised at those reviews. I have 5 refurbished LaCie "Rugged" Thunderbolt/USB3.0 enclosures, 3 of which I have swapped out the hard disk for SSDs and have had no problems with any of them. I currently use 2 of them with 500GB SSDs for bootable Windows 8.1 and they are velcro attached to the back of the stand on my iMacs and using the Thunderbolt interface. They have been working great as well.

I have no problems with the LaCie "Rugged" myself, but primarily use them with the Thunderbolt interface.

Are you looking for Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 enclosures, as there are plenty of low cost USB 3 enclosures recommended by several users here?

I have also used the Inateck and Oyen Digital enclosures:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OFJ1UK6?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VKTJGW?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

 

[Leek]

My MacBook doesn't have USB 3.0 so I need either Thunderbolt or FireWire 800. Do you have the LaCie first generation drives with removable Thunderbolt cable, or second generation with integrated Thunderbolt cable?

 

[pastrychef]

I think that by today's standards, Firewire 800 is quite slow.

 

[hfg]

My MacBook doesn't have USB 3.0 so I need either Thunderbolt or FireWire 800. Do you have the LaCie first generation drives with removable Thunderbolt cable, or second generation with integrated Thunderbolt cable?

I have the first generation with removable cable.

A refurbished 1TB Thunderbolt hard disk unit is $80 here:

http://www.macmall.com/p/LaCie-External-Hard-Drives/product~dpno~9597442~pdp.icbeahb

You could use it as-is, or easily swap your 7200rpm HGST drive into the enclosure and sell/repurpose the original 5400rpm drive (put it in the USB 2 enclosure and use for backup).