OWC 'Mercury On-the-go' drives - any experience?

[twynne]

Looking for a good FW800 bus-powered backup solution for my new MBP, and just wondering if anyone has experience with these:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

Also I'm between the 5400rpm 250gb, and the 7200rpm 160gb. I like the idea of the extra space on the 250, but given the bus speed do you think the 5400rpm would slow it down too much for backup purposes?

Thanks all,

Tom

 

[theBB]

I'd go for capacity. Even with Firewire 800, the chips on the harddisk will probably limit your speed more than the harddisk spin. In any case, let's say it takes two minutes longer to copy 100GB. Is that a big deal? If you backup frequently, you will have much less than 100GB to copyy each time anyways.

 

[twynne]

I'd go for capacity. Even with Firewire 800, the chips on the harddisk will probably limit your speed more than the harddisk spin. In any case, let's say it takes two minutes longer to copy 100GB. Is that a big deal? If you backup frequently, you will have much less than 100GB to copyy each time anyways.

True - I was already leaning toward the larger drive. It is slightly more expensive, but it would be nice to have enough capacity to fully back up the MBP and extra space for whatever.

 

[Dimwhit]

If their on-the-go drives are as good as their others, buy it. I'm using one of their larger external as a backup for my MBP and it works great. The FW800 is especially nice.

 

[twynne]

I'm hoping the FW800 will be a significant improvement when backing up. After reading this revew:

http://www.macobserver.com/review/2006/12/26.1.shtml

I'm not sure whether to think they've got the FW400 and FW800 reversed, or FW400 is genuinely better for some reason. Surely it's a mistake?!

 

[Dimwhit]

I'm not sure whether to think they've got the FW400 and FW800 reversed, or FW400 is genuinely better for some reason. Surely it's a mistake?!

Definitely a mistake. The 800 is absolutely faster than the 400. I've used both on my system.

 

[twynne]

Thanks for the feedback - really helpful!