2.5" Firewire HDD Suggestions

[indigoflowAS]

I am on the market for a Firewire hard drive and I have been contemplating a 2.5 inch interface for portability benefits.

If I understand correctly, many of these drives are powered by the bus and do not need a power adapter. If any of you all have experience w/ any particular 2.5" drives, throw them my way...and if you truly believe that the larger 3.5" is the way to go in any case, fill me in why....but I'm all about the 2.5" even if they tend to cost and arm and a leg. Good looks is a plus (sounds like a personal ad) cause the SmartDisk brand is hideous.

Thanks in advance.

 

[cepler]

I am on the market for a Firewire hard drive and I have been contemplating a 2.5 inch interface for portability benefits.

If I understand correctly, many of these drives are powered by the bus and do not need a power adapter. If any of you all have experience w/ any particular 2.5" drives, throw them my way...and if you truly believe that the larger 3.5" is the way to go in any case, fill me in why....but I'm all about the 2.5" even if they tend to cost and arm and a leg. Good looks is a plus (sounds like a personal ad) cause the SmartDisk brand is hideous.

Pick up a drive and an enclosure. Mounting the drive in an enclosure is NOT rocket science. I mean, I know you're an Apple user and all but you can do it! Trust me! You have the skill! You can make it work! GO TEAM GO! *cough*

Macally PHR-250CC 2.5" enclosure is decent. It's firewire 400 and not 800 but I don't think you really need 800 for a 2.5" drive. It'll also do USB2 as well. Power is supplied via 6 pin Firewire connection and it also has a passthru.

Pickup a decent large drive, 80+ gig or so.

A 3.5" might be a little faster but just about all of them require that you carry around a power supply in addition to the enclosure. Yuck. I have one on my DESKTOP but for my LAPTOP I use a 2.5" that I take with me. Works great. The Macally enclosure is small, simple, rugged and looked 1/2 decent. There are plenty of them out there to choose from but this is the one I chose due to the above features. Here are some URL's to help you out a bit:

PHR-250CC:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146604

Cheapie model:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146605
WARNING: That one above there is USB2 only. USB2 ports may not have enough power to power all 2.5" drives alone and may require either a second USB port or an AC adapter to power. Your mileage may vary.

Was gonna put hard drive links but you can find those, there are too many options and it all depends on what you want to spend...

 

[indigoflowAS]

hey! i really appreciate it.

i can handle the rocket science of this procedure, not much harder than building a PC i imagine

appreciate the links, that way i dont have to deal w/ an ugly enclosure. perfect place to start some deal sleuthing...

...any other ideas, suggestions are more than welcome.