External HDD Solutions

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Wynsam

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Help needed.

I want to find an external case to be able to take a normal 3.5 HDD. It must have usb and firwire as my laptop has a firewire connection and I will use it to transfer large amounts of data. Others in the office who might backup onto the drive use usb 2.

The thing I cant determine is what drives go into these external enclosures. Are they IDE, SATA etc. What should I be looking to put into the enclosure to ensure good speed IDE, SATA,(after all that is the point of paying for firewire compatible enclosure).

I see Vantec have usb and FW models I cant see what drives go into them. Another question is to the brand of drive to put in. Which offers the longest warranty or is the most reliable currently.
 
I have a couple of the seagate 500gb Baracuda ATA external hdd which support fw400 and usb2. I dont think drive type is that important until you start looking at the fw800 drives.
 
The Vantec Nexstar 3 casings take SATA drives and they have external e-SATA connections along with USB 2.0 ones. I'm currently using one of these with a 320GB Seagate SATA drive. No compatibility problems ever encountered.
 
@ bwana

I gather your a all things mac fan. Does FW have big advantage over usb2 for everday use. Have you tried back to back comparisons, do you think it justifies the additional cost over over usb 2?
 
I've got a Seagate Baracuda in a Vantec external case, working perfectly, but I think those are USB or F/W only, not both. Saw Makro had a 250GB Fujitsu Siemens external for R999 a couple of weeks ago, not bad. Think it was USB only though.
 
I want one of those network ones, but they expensive, cheapest one is a netgear one which i think costs like close to 1k. its a fileserver, san, etc
 
Wynsam said:
@ bwana

I gather your a all things mac fan. Does FW have big advantage over usb2 for everday use. Have you tried back to back comparisons, do you think it justifies the additional cost over over usb 2?
Click to expand...
Is there really that much difference in price these days?

Even though USB2s numbers are slightly higher on paper FW is better suited for hdds where there are going to be extended periods of w/r activity.

EDIT - btw - not just my mac's have fw :D
 
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I have decided to kill two birds with one stone and go for a compromise solution. I have gone for a 2.5 hdd enclosure that includes the memory card reader so that I can use it in the field to dump images onto. http://www.nanoelf.co.za/digital-camera-partner-p-199.html is the one. I have got it at very good price. Basically the price of a normal 2.5 hdd enclosure. Its not going to have speed i want but I will solve that problem later and live with usb poor speed for now.

This leads me to the next part of the puzzle. Which hdd to put into the enclosre. The enclosure takes PATA drives. I am wanting as bid as possible within the 2.5 limitation. The Seagate Momentus 5400 Mobile Pata 120gb or 160 seem to the answer.

They have a five year warranty so I assume they are good. Anyone got experience with them?
 
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