I am looking for a 250GB external firewire drive. Can anyone suggest one? It will be used for backups. I would like to order online. As I have looked around and they are hard to find, most places only stock USB drives.
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What is a good 250GB firewire drive?
- Thread starter trainguy77
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My standard advice:
Get a MacAlly aluminum Firewire case, and your choice of internal IDE hard drive like a Seagate Barracuda (5 year warranty), Mactor DiamondMax 9 or 10 (3 year warranty) or a Maxtor MaxLine III (16 Mb cache and 5 year warranty) and assemble your own. You'll usually come out less expensive, and you'll get a longer warranty on the drive. What you give up is any bundled software.
Get a MacAlly aluminum Firewire case, and your choice of internal IDE hard drive like a Seagate Barracuda (5 year warranty), Mactor DiamondMax 9 or 10 (3 year warranty) or a Maxtor MaxLine III (16 Mb cache and 5 year warranty) and assemble your own. You'll usually come out less expensive, and you'll get a longer warranty on the drive. What you give up is any bundled software.
I do like that idea. I don't care about the software as I will be using either Retrospect Express(I own it) Or something like CCC.CanadaRAM said:
Is this the case you were talking about? http://www.macally.com/spec/firewire/storage/35enclosure.htmlCanadaRAM said:
EDIT: The Maxtor MaxLine III looks like it only comes in SATA and Parallel not IDE.
EDIT: same with the Maxtor.
EDIT: is SATA the same as IDE???? I am confused.
No, SATA and IDE are different. I would recommend getting a case from newegg.com, as well as a drive. They have a plethora of cases, and some of the best prices you'll find around. Here's a link to the cases:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010090092+1053807123&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=92
And the hard drives:
http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Category.asp?Category=15
Just make sure the case takes IDE drives if you choose an IDE one, and vice versa. I would frankly go with IDE, since the cases are likely to be cheaper.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010090092+1053807123&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=92
And the hard drives:
http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Category.asp?Category=15
Just make sure the case takes IDE drives if you choose an IDE one, and vice versa. I would frankly go with IDE, since the cases are likely to be cheaper.
I just today ordered a Acomdata 250gb External hard drive that I've heard good things about from friends and amazon...I paid $100 after a $35 rebate that ended today, but it was the second time I saw the rebate offered, so it may just restart tomorrow, I'm not quite sure. But even $135 for a 250gb firewire drive is pretty darn good.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=332724&pfp=BROWSE
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=332724&pfp=BROWSE
Agreed that a case and IDE are the way to go. I use IcyBox enclosures and they keep the drives really cool without a fan.
I have had bad luck with Maxtors.
I can heartily recommend Hitachi, Western Digital and Seagate IDE drives.
If you give a look at Computers.Com (CNET) you will find a lot of bitching and moaning about the preassembled externals from ALL of the major manufactures. Homegrown is a much better way to go, both in terms of price and reliability.
PS: Get a case that has both FIREWIRE and USB so that you can use the speed of Firewire on your mac, but if need ever be, the drive can be read by a USB 2.0 port.
I have had bad luck with Maxtors.
I can heartily recommend Hitachi, Western Digital and Seagate IDE drives.
If you give a look at Computers.Com (CNET) you will find a lot of bitching and moaning about the preassembled externals from ALL of the major manufactures. Homegrown is a much better way to go, both in terms of price and reliability.
PS: Get a case that has both FIREWIRE and USB so that you can use the speed of Firewire on your mac, but if need ever be, the drive can be read by a USB 2.0 port.
Thanks for the help guys. I am thinking I will go with this set:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144176
For the harddrive and:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145657
as the case. What do you think? Should I go with a IDE ultra ATA 133 instead of a 100? Would that make much of a speed change?
For the harddrive and:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145657
as the case. What do you think? Should I go with a IDE ultra ATA 133 instead of a 100? Would that make much of a speed change?
Well, if it were me, I would recommend the 300GB Seagate drive that's the exact same price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148064
Same price, 50GB more, and Seagates have a 5 year warranty. Oh, and the one I have is whisper-quiet. Love it!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148064
Same price, 50GB more, and Seagates have a 5 year warranty. Oh, and the one I have is whisper-quiet. Love it!
trainguy77 said:
Pata connector on harddrives are IDE just another name for IDE
SATA uses 2 thin cables without the selection pin like the IDE hard drives
SATA is alot faster than IDE but the external cases for SATA drives are still expensive to buy .. If your on a budget then use IDE drive and fw drive like CanadaRam said
Not to thread jack but is it easy to put together the case and HDD? Ive installed a few CD drives and RAM into a computer is it much harder than that? Do they typically come with instructions?
Make your own from a barracuda seagate drive and an enclosure. The warranty is much longer.
EDIT: Sorry I should have read further.
runninmac: Yeah it is super easy to do, you just open it up connect two cables and put it back together. They do come with instructions though.
EDIT: Sorry I should have read further.
runninmac: Yeah it is super easy to do, you just open it up connect two cables and put it back together. They do come with instructions though.
Parallell IDE = EIDE = UltraATAtrainguy77 said:
Parallel is used to distinguish an IDE (UltraATA) drive from a Serial ATA (SATA) drive
SerialATA is nominally 150 MB/s compared with Parallel IDE / Ultra ATA at a nominal 100 MB/s or 133 MB/s
Since the Firewire 400 interface is going to top out at 50 MB/s, there is really nothing to choose between SATA and IDE for the external mechanism -- you;re not going to saturate the drive interface in either case.
Now for my next trick find someone who ships to canada. Or find a canadian store that sells these things.
I found that the bay can be bought at: http://www.amsestore.com/Detail.bok?no=446 the site looks a little fishy but its linked to from this site: http://www.amselectronics.com/ So if I order through those guys for the drive I should be able to get the drive somewhere here in Calgary. Futureshop sells that kind of thing.
That case is a generic Taiwanese OEM drive enclosure, we can get them. I still like the MacAlly better.trainguy77 said:
Ordering from the US will cost you a lot more than you think, once you factor in exchange, shipping and brokerage and GST. $65 US will come out to approx CAN$110 landed.
Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com