Largest Drive Can I Put in a WD Premium Edition II Case

[LeicaM8]

Does anyone know what is the maximum drive size I can put in a WD Premium Edition II Drive Case?
It's one of the early WD External Raid Housings with FW800/400 & USB. It Supports Raid 0 and 1 Only. The WD website has been no help and sifting the google search results is taking awhile.
I need to knowif it can handle 2tb or larger drives and if it can successfully use the WD Green drives, but since the drive can't do JBOD I can't experiment on my own. I don't have a pair of empty green drives or pair of empty 2tb or 3tb drives available and I don't have the $$$ to order a stack of drives from TigerDirect .
Thx in Advance
Richard in Michigan
(I'm not sure if this is the right sub-forum to ask this, but google is giving me a googleplex of spurius results)

 

[brand]

(I'm not sure if this is the right sub-forum to ask this, but google is giving me a googleplex of spurius results)

This has nothing to do with the Mac Pro hardware and the Mac Pro is never mentioned in the post so I would say its the wrong forum. You might find a better answer in the appropriate apple accessories fourm.

 

[LeicaM8]

Hi,
A) I can't see a forum noting External Drives or Drives as being the appropriate location for my inquiry, but I have now posted this to an accessories despite it seeming to be devoted to speakers, mice, keyboards, and such. If that is not correct further input is most welcome on my part.
B) I am a MacPro user, the drive will be used with my MacPro, and I only own a the MacPro for my computing needs. Does that weasel me in under the wire to still use this sub-forum? I'm just joshing! The site needs to be curated or end up bogging down in crosstalk and annoyances.
Sincerely
R in Mi.

This has nothing to do with the Mac Pro hardware and the Mac Pro is never mentioned in the post so I would say its the wrong forum. You might find a better answer in the appropriate apple accessories fourm.

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

Read the specifications on the enclosure. I am assuming if the drives are formatted GUID which they will of course, then I would say maximum could be 2TB - maybe, 8TB.

Again, read the specs on the enclosure.. If not sure, then call the place you got the enclosure from. Not all enclosures are alike. Your milage may vary.

 

[LeicaM8]

Alas Western Digital doesnt sell these as Enclosures, they're sold as comlete hard drive raid packages with user replaceable drives. Further, WD tech support's party line is to say 'only replace drives with the exact same drives your housing came with'.
Therefore there aren't any publicly available specifications for me to consult to know which drives will or won't work in the casing. Well, at Least none I've found in multiple searches across multiple days. I have seen tangental references on google to putting bigger drives in this drive housing having been done, but nothing i consider definitive.

R in Mi.

Read the specifications on the enclosure. I am assuming if the drives are formatted GUID which they will of course, then I would say maximum could be 2TB - maybe, 8TB.

Again, read the specs on the enclosure.. If not sure, then call the place you got the enclosure from. Not all enclosures are alike. Your milage may vary.

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

Best advice I give to those who want to buy enclosures.. go with OWC as they are 100 percent guaranteed to work on any Mac and they will tell you what the max capacity hdd that will work in the enclosures..

Thats just my advice though.. but again, I am sure 2TB up to 4TB will work.

Alas Western Digital doesnt sell these as Enclosures, they're sold as comlete hard drive raid packages with user replaceable drives. Further, WD tech support's party line is to say 'only replace drives with the exact same drives your housing came with'.
Therefore there aren't any publicly available specifications for me to consult to know which drives will or won't work in the casing. Well, at Least none I've found in multiple searches across multiple days. I have seen tangental references on google to putting bigger drives in this drive housing having been done, but nothing i consider definitive.

R in Mi.

 

[LeicaM8]

I whole heartedly second that advice cuz OWC is a terrific source. I bought my MacPro's ram upgrade from them - it was fabulous buying experience. However, as a disabled person on a small pension it is in my best interest financially to see if I can repurpose this drive housing and achieve my goal of a mirrored external drive for a crap load less money. If not, I'll save up for 3-4 more months for an owc housing.
R in Mi.

Best advice I give to those who want to buy enclosures.. go with OWC as they are 100 percent guaranteed to work on any Mac and they will tell you what the max capacity hdd that will work in the enclosures..

Thats just my advice though.. but again, I am sure 2TB up to 4TB will work.

 

[Tesselator]

My advice would be to buy the cheapest enclosure with the best PSU specs foremost and accessibility next. Styling can be a consideration but brand name is a VERY bad thing to consider when purchasing these kinds of items. Another no-no typically, is to select anything proprietary like Drobo or the device we're talking about here. (proprietarity = high-price + limitation + incompatibilities + headaches). So the priority goes:

Look for:

1) Interface types (USB, eSATA, etc.)
2) PSU (type and rating),
3) Price (cheapest is usually best),
4) Accessibility (to the mounted drives),
5) Style (if you're into that sorta thing).
-- I suppose you can swap 3 for 4 or 5 on personal preference.​

Avoid:

1) Brand names,
2) Propriety.​

On the device under discussion I recommend buying the HDD you want based on spec and need (I like the Barracuda 1TB per platter, 7200RPM drives [in 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB sizes] best myself - very fast, and reelable) and see if it works in your case. If it doesn't hook up the new drive internally, copy over the data, and sell that WDC thing on ebay.

 

[AlexMaximus]

Its all in the chips these days

I whole heartedly second that advice cuz OWC is a terrific source. I bought my MacPro's ram upgrade from them - it was fabulous buying experience. However, as a disabled person on a small pension it is in my best interest financially to see if I can repurpose this drive housing and achieve my goal of a mirrored external drive for a crap load less money. If not, I'll save up for 3-4 more months for an owc housing.
R in Mi.

What you could do in theory is to disasemble the housing and Look what Kind of chips or Controller has been used. Put down those numbers and google it. On numerous webpages you might find out the hardware limit that tells you what you want.

 

[LeicaM8]

Thanks for the Input. Tis much appreciated.
R in Mi.

My advice would be to buy the cheapest enclosure with the best PSU specs foremost and accessibility next. Styling can be a consideration but brand name is a VERY bad thing to consider when purchasing these kinds of items. Another no-no typically, is to select anything proprietary like Drobo or the device we're talking about here. (proprietarity = high-price + limitation + incompatibilities + headaches). So the priority goes:

Look for:

1) Interface types (USB, eSATA, etc.)
2) PSU (type and rating),
3) Price (cheapest is usually best),
4) Accessibility (to the mounted drives),
5) Style (if you're into that sorta thing).
-- I suppose you can swap 3 for 4 or 5 on personal preference.​

Avoid:

1) Brand names,
2) Propriety.​

On the device under discussion I recommend buying the HDD you want based on spec and need (I like the Barracuda 1TB per platter, 7200RPM drives [in 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB sizes] best myself - very fast, and reelable) and see if it works in your case. If it doesn't hook up the new drive internally, copy over the data, and sell that WDC thing on ebay.

 

[Rachel Faith]

BUMP

I have this same exact question. WD says NOT OFFICALLY SUPPORTED beyond 1TB drives. But, perhaps someone knows how to do it unofficially?

Otherwise I have 4 2TB RAID enclosures for sale... CHEAP.

 

[LeicaM8]

BUMP

I have this same exact question. WD says NOT OFFICALLY SUPPORTED beyond 1TB drives. But, perhaps someone knows how to do it unofficially?

Otherwise I have 4 2TB RAID enclosures for sale... CHEAP.

Rachel,
I never tested anything larger in my housing than the 1tb drives it came with because the Fan started misbehaving in my housing. It would barely spin at all, drive would warm up, then blow like a hovercraft ::shrugs:: I drug some old ide housings out of the discard drawer, put the WD drives in em w/ sata adapters, and moved on.

How cheap for the housings?
(Seriously, am interested for right price)

Richard

 

[Rachel Faith]

I am not selling just the housings. I am selling 4 2 TB Raids FW 800/400 with DISKS, WORKING, CLEAN and WIPED. $85 each with Pay Pal. Plus actual shipping from 50047 Iowa - PM me if you are serious. I need to go out and by one of those Thunderbolt $2500 units and just bite that bullet.

 

[Tesselator]

I am not selling just the housings. I am selling 4 2 TB Raids FW 800/400 with DISKS, WORKING, CLEAN and WIPED. $85 each with Pay Pal. Plus actual shipping from 50047 Iowa - PM me if you are serious.

I think that's way too high myself. I guess about $25 to $30 would be about right. New very fast, 1TB drives can be had for $25 to $35 and cute (machining MP case style) drive enclosures can be had for $25 to $40 - and they will accept drives of any size too.

BTW, I walked by a trashcan in an industrial park, about a month ago and saw maybe 15 or 20 of those sitting there with all the cords, drives in, and scratchless. I whipped out my Galaxy Note II and looked up what they were on the internet - specs and etc. After understanding, I just left them there. Were they actually useful I would have grabbed a few.

 

[Rachel Faith]

I think that's way too high myself. I guess about $25 to $30 would be about right. New very fast, 1TB drives can be had for $25 to $35 and cute (machining MP case style) drive enclosures can be had for $25 to $40 - and they will accept drives of any size too.

I'd love to find some 7200 1TB drives for $25! Please link.

And dual firewire 800 cases for $25? No chance in hell.

But even IF true. Then mine are HALF price because they are 2TB. And thus still cheaper.

And of course, such a drive set up, if it existed would NOT be RAID either.

You wanna trust that much data to a single drive in a cheap chinese made ebay seller's enclosure? So be it. Good luck.

 

[TheEasterBunny]

I'd love to find some 7200 1TB drives for $25! Please link.

And dual firewire 800 cases for $25? No chance in hell.

But even IF true. Then mine are HALF price because they are 2TB. And thus still cheaper.

And of course, such a drive set up, if it existed would NOT be RAID either.

You wanna trust that much data to a single drive in a cheap chinese made ebay seller's enclosure? So be it. Good luck.

This is what I found in a 5 minute search:

1TB

1TB

2TB

2TB

Granted one of the 1TB drives is a white label. However all of the sellers I have used before and are very reputable, with great return policies.
I couldn't find any $25.00 drives, but I only looked for five minutes.

It makes NO sense to me to spend $2500.00 on an enclosure when I can buy a cheap PC or Mac Pro (used/refurb) for less than $100.00 ($500.00 for the Pro) and use them as only a drive farm with the same connect speeds. Using an eSATA port duplicator, would be cheaper too, and smaller than the PC/old Pro solution.
The reality is that those boxes, do not have $2500.00 worth of electronics, hard drives, or any connection speed worthy of the price.
IMHO

 

[Tesselator]

This is what I found in a 5 minute search:

1TB

1TB

I found them for $49 on Amazon. But I see the 1TB Seagates going new for $30 sometimes in the shops - so I said about $25 to $30. I suppose I should have said $30 to $50... Whatever... I certainly would never ever buy a used hard-drive. Almost everything else, fine... Harddrives and mice... no way!

I'd love to find some 7200 1TB drives for $25! Please link.

And dual firewire 800 cases for $25? No chance in hell.

But even IF true. Then mine are HALF price because they are 2TB. And thus still cheaper.

And of course, such a drive set up, if it existed would NOT be RAID either.

You wanna trust that much data to a single drive in a cheap chinese made ebay seller's enclosure? So be it. Good luck.

Of course it would RAID. Get two $15 cases, connect them via eSATA, and RAID them - simple. I don't like firewire for hard drives at all so that's not important to me. USB3 or eSATA is the cheapest, fastest, and most supported.

http://www.newegg.com/External-Enclosures/SubCategory/ID-92

This looks kinda cool: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817173043

RAIDable dual-drive USB3.0 for $33 : http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Drive-Do...68116997&sr=1-2&keywords=dual+hard+drive+dock




This looks interesting:

​

Just $25 for RAIDable Dual dock: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0047P77HI/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new I could get two of those and use the two eSATA connectors in the MacPro for 600MB/s 4-drive RAID0 or RAID1 - they're even hot-swapable. And I can read the memory cards with the USB 3.0 connection at the same time.

Of course these ARE NOT LIMITED to tiny little 1TB drives like the things you're trying to sell in this discussion forum. My 4TB drives worked in them fine.

 

[ActionableMango]

And I can read the memory cards with the USB 3.0 connection at the same time.

Technical Details from that link says "USB 2.0".

 

[TheEasterBunny]

Did someone say something about used drives that I missed?
BTW, the comment about "cheap Chinese parts" You really should do some research on who makes most of the parts in all computers.

----------

Technical Details from that link says "USB 2.0".

Only one of the three links is a usb 2.0 and eSATA the other two are USB 3.0 and eSATA

 

[Tesselator]

Ya, and I just selected that as an example. There's quite a few others and offer quite a few different configurations depending on how one organizes and incorporates them (singly or in multiples).