Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

External disk enclosures

B

b0redom

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 4, 2007
127
0
Hi All,
I'm considering downsizing from a gaming PC, Linux workstation, and a 24" iMac to a 27" iMac and running VMWare and Bootcamp for gaming. If I do this, I'll have a couple of SSD drives and a BluRay drive.

Apple have generously said I can have one for 14 days and return it if it's not up to replacing my gaming PC. I can't find any real benchmarks. Just a load of people saying "Yeah it looks OK to me."

Obviously the BluRay drive will need a 5.25" enclosure. What's best for this? USB or Firewire, or is there no difference?

What's the best enclosure for SSDs? I was planning on using them to run Bootcamp, and considering using 2.5" bus powered USB2 drives to cut down on the cables. Does firewire make any significant performance difference?

Cheers...

Tom
 
Hi,
Thanks for that link, but I've seen it before. What I'm more interested in is things like FEAR 2, Starcraft 2, World In Conflict. To be honest I suspect it will be powerful enough, but I can't find anyone who has an i7 who likes games which are more modern that WOW and Quake.

Re the SSD drives. The appeal of having them in USB2/firewire enclosures is that they'd be bus powered, and silent. I realise that I'd be limited by the bus speed, but I'd probably get next to nothing selling them 2nd hand anyway.
 
GO firewire usb is too slow to get any kind of performance really
and for your gaming hmm the i7 processor is fine for that , the dd3 ram too if you get some more then standard 4 gb ,yes it will be fine for gaming ..your limiter in the iMac is the graphics card , not a bad card ,but not rely up for modern games , ok it will work if you lower settings and resolution , but if apple offers you one for testing then test it out , some can live with that graphic card others not :confused:
 
Are there any bus powered firewire 800 enclosures?

I currently have a C2D E8600 and GTX280 in my gaming PC. I realise that the 4850 in the isn't going to come close to that, but given I now have a 3 year old, and another on the way, chances are it's not going to get hammered nearly so much.

The only thing which came anywhere close to maxxing that out was Crysis, and that wasn't exactly a fantastic game.
 
Hellhammer said:
Nope. If I recall correctly, Firewire can't transmit power so all devices need external PSU
Click to expand...

That's incorrect. They can transmit power. I have a FW400 external case and it does power and data through 1 cable. Now I have to find a FW800 case for my external drive...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back