External Drive Advice

[NameOfBeast]

Hi guys, I need some advice:

I have a Cooler Master X 360 external drive enclosure (eSATA and USB interfaces, though I can only use USB on my MB). Very nice. When it works . This is a OS X problem; there is a known fix for 10.5.2:
http://www.coolermaster.com/support/faq-2.php?fid=1874
(which I had working), but this was borked from the 10.5.3 update onwards. I have contacted CM repeatedly about this, with no reply.

I'm now annoyed. Even if they do come with a fix, I'm a bit concerned that come the next update.... So, I want a new external drive. What works for you guys? I'm tending towards either a Seagate FreeAgent Pro External Drive:
http://www.take2.co.za/electronics-seagate-freeagent-pro-external-drive-750gb-usb-2-0--esata--firewire-2375740.html
or the WD moral equivalent:
http://www.take2.co.za/electronics-western-digital-external-my-book-essential-hard-drive-500gb--usb2-0-1629287.html
I just want to make certain there are no driver problems with these drives. Anyone here have experience with these brands? Could you suggest reliable alternatives? This will be for my MB only (the Cooler Master can go live in the doghouse with the windows machines).

 

[MadMailMan]

I use the FreeAgent Pros in my Mac environments and they are plug and play. Not a moments problems using either USB or FW. Highly recommended even though I haven't used the WD ones. What is the cost difference?

 

[adsl3g]

Why would you need a driver for an external USB device? My externals all run just by plugging it in - maybe I'm missing something

 

[Tun@]

You can get these for R300-R350

NST-360SU-BL

Interface: SATA to eSATA& USB 2.0
206 X 123 X 33 mm
Window 98SE / ME / 2000 / XP
****************Mac OS 8.6 & Above



http://www.vantecusa.com/p_nst360su_bl.html

 

[koffiejunkie]

I have a Cooler Master X 360 external drive enclosure (eSATA and USB interfaces, though I can only use USB on my MB). Very nice. When it works . This is a OS X problem;

Actually, that is 100% CoolerMaster's problem. They build an enclosure, and instead of using the accepted standards, that everybody else conforms to, they go and put their own spin on it, or use "features" that only exist in windows, or whatever. Seagate did the same with some of their external drives - some powersaving feature that *depends* on windows. WTF???

As for a suggestion, Cyberdyne sells (or used to sell, not sure) SNT enclosures. They are the best quality I have seen. The casings are made of aluminium, they have proper cooling in, and the USB/FireWire-to-IDE/SATA are by far the best performers I have seen. The ones I'm talking about looks like this. Another thing I like about them is they don't have a cable connection for the drive - it's a solid connector soldered onto the PCB and the power is adjustable.

On the other end of the extreme, I have a Vantec USB2/Firewire enclosure, that cost about the same as the SNT (Cyberdyne didn't have stock, and this was the only other FW enclosure I could find). It's crap. Performance is nothing special, the whole thing is plastic, has no active cooling and very poor ventilation, flimsy cable connections. I have only ever had one drive in it, a drive that I know to be good, and I'm getting all sorts of weird issues with it. For example, copying a large file to it (several GB), it would just stall halfway through. I tend to have to power cycle it before it will work properly again.

 

[Tun@]

Have you used this successfully? Reason I ask is that the CM enclosure is also listed as being supported by OS X (but isn't in reality).

No...running vista - haven't had 1 instance of trouble from the 2 i got and disagree with the opinion above.
Only crap thing i noticed about em is where the end plate screws on, the thread machining is a bit butch.