Reliable firewire on Imac ? with reliable enclosures?

[Kallel00]

I'm in total love with the new IMac screen, but what's stopping me from purchasing atm is the fact I need to use alot of harddrives.


I'm used to using 4 internal SATA II drives on my PC, and USB external drives really isn't appealing to me atm ....


I've been testing Firewire 800 atm on a 2009 mac mini combined with a Western Digital MyBook Studio. Results have been extremely bad, since reading/writing on the harddrive seems to "pause" every 10-15 seconds or so. I've tried hooking that drive up via USB, and it works fine without any kind of pauses, so that makes me worry about the reliability of Firewire ports either on the computer or the harddrive itself.


Since I'm going to be doing a lot of HD video editing, it'd be nice to be convinced I can get good results with the IMac's firewire port & external drive or enclosure. Who's using what with absolute success? That's all I need to be convinced

 

[SaSaSushi]

Since I'm going to be doing a lot of HD video editing, it'd be nice to be convinced I can get good results with the IMac's firewire port & external drive or enclosure. Who's using what with absolute success?

I have been using a Seagate 1.5TB HD in the Icy Dock MB559UEB1-S emclosure for about a year and a half now (using F/W800) and have never experienced any pauses whatsoever. I'm not sure what's going on with your Mini but that doesn't sound normal at all.

 

[Kallel00]

I'm not sure what's going on with your Mini but that doesn't sound normal at all.

oh, I just need to read reviews about the WD MyBook Studio drives to see what's likely the culprit to my problem.


If the Icy Dock enclosures have a flawlessly working firewire 800 port, then I guess I can be at ease towards my new purchase

Thanks

 

[SaSaSushi]

If the Icy Dock enclosures have a flawlessly working firewire 800 port, then I guess I can be at ease towards my new purchase

Thanks

Absolutely, the Icy Dock is great! But mine is now one generation back. The latest model doesn't even require special trays to swap out HDDs. They just plug in as is. It also may have a slightly newer Firewire chipset.

My enclosure has been great. It is a solid design and next to silent in operation.

I don't think you'd have any problems at all.

 

[Jaro65]

I use a FireWire 800 chain with my 2TB WD Studio drives and it has been working great.

 

[Kallel00]

Hummmmm.... using my Firewire drive on the MacMini basically puts it constantly back to sleep (the drive) . I was under the impression it was a common problem with firewire. Guess not

I guess its time to have that checked out