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Which FW 800 HDD for my mini?

dubhe

dubhe

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 1, 2007
1,304
10
Norwich, UK
I need to add 1TB of storage to my mini and I quite like the iomega drives that match the form factor of the Mac mini, but of course these are all FW 400 and the mini is now on FW 800.

I don't want to use USB, so what do you guys recommend? Should I wait and see if iomega bring out a FW 800, or is there another drive I should be considering? Lacie drives are about the same size, do they look good stacked underneath?

Thanks in advance :)
 
dubhe said:
I'm quite liking the look of the Lacie d2 quadra.
Click to expand...

I'm with you. I'm liking the LaCie 2big Quadra (dual drive RAID). It ain't cheap, but frankly I'm tired of having a motley assortment of mismatched external hard drives on my desktop (with multiple fans whirring, plus all the Firewire/USB ports they require). I'm going to get the 2big Quadra and dump the rest. I can always pop in bigger drives as my needs increase.
 
Beware of the fan noise ...

jamesdmc said:
This is what I'm considering: the ministack v3
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I have a WD 1T green in a MiniStack V3. If I copy small amount of data to/from the drive, it is fine. If I hit the drive harder, then the fan kicks in and it is LOUD. In my case, some part of the fan blade is hitting something and it "screams" with fan noise. Given the relative quiet of my Mac Mini, it is very, very unwelcome. I have two other FW drives connected. Both are in passively cooled aluminum enclosures (1 Macally, 1 Rosewell) ... I would take that route if you don't need the extra ports.

Yes, my desk is getting crowded with external drives ... I will start to shift to 2T drives once the price comes down and I might be able to reduce the drive count.
 
gwerhart0800 said:
If I hit the drive harder, then the fan kicks in and it is LOUD.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I have two of the older MiniStacks. I had them stacked. One of them would run the fan constantly - and very loudly. Apparently MiniStack doesn't really like to be stacked. I ended up giving one to my mother-in-law and using the other as a backup drive for my wife's computer. Now I have a Western Digital 500 GB and two Iomega 320 GB drives junking up my desk. I hope to relieve the clutter with the LaCie RAID enclosure.

I wish Drobo was cheaper...
 
gwerhart0800 said:
I have a WD 1T green in a MiniStack V3. If I copy small amount of data to/from the drive, it is fine. If I hit the drive harder, then the fan kicks in and it is LOUD. In my case, some part of the fan blade is hitting something and it "screams" with fan noise. Given the relative quiet of my Mac Mini, it is very, very unwelcome. I have two other FW drives connected. Both are in passively cooled aluminum enclosures (1 Macally, 1 Rosewell) ... I would take that route if you don't need the extra ports.

Yes, my desk is getting crowded with external drives ... I will start to shift to 2T drives once the price comes down and I might be able to reduce the drive count.
Click to expand...

Can you provide a link to a Rosewell enclosure?
 
The top of the 4big Quadra is about the same size as a Mac mini, excuse my lack of photoshop but how about this setup?!
 

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Actually I'm thinking about this, it is pricey, but FW 800, no power cable, and it should look nice next to my mini.

If only it wasn't £325...

Wonder if the pen is included too?!
 

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I think the ribbed aluminum enclosures from LaCie are currently the best looking external hard drives out there. Shame about the glowing blue orb... :(

With so many ugly drives out there, I had penned a design for an enclosure for an industrial design buddy of mine to work up, but scrapped the idea when I decided the start-up costs would be prohibitive. I wanted an unchanging classic design that I could use for years and build upon as I added new drives to my system, unlike the aesthetically convoluted mess you get when you buy whatever drive is currently on the market. Like the 3 different drive enclosures I have on my desk right now. :mad:

My design looked somewhat similar to these LaCie drives. Better, but somewhat similar. :D
 
LagunaSol said:
Agreed. I have two of the older MiniStacks. I had them stacked. One of them would run the fan constantly - and very loudly. Apparently MiniStack doesn't really like to be stacked. I ended up giving one to my mother-in-law and using the other as a backup drive for my wife's computer. Now I have a Western Digital 500 GB and two Iomega 320 GB drives junking up my desk. I hope to relieve the clutter with the LaCie RAID enclosure.

I wish Drobo was cheaper...
Click to expand...

yeah ministack=fail
 
LagunaSol said:
I think the ribbed aluminum enclosures from LaCie are currently the best looking external hard drives out there. Shame about the glowing blue orb... :(

With so many ugly drives out there, I had penned a design for an enclosure for an industrial design buddy of mine to work up, but scrapped the idea when I decided the start-up costs would be prohibitive. I wanted an unchanging classic design that I could use for years and build upon as I added new drives to my system, unlike the aesthetically convoluted mess you get when you buy whatever drive is currently on the market. Like the 3 different drive enclosures I have on my desk right now. :mad:

My design looked somewhat similar to these LaCie drives. Better, but somewhat similar. :D
Click to expand...

I know what you mean, I have an old Lacie d2 from 2003 which is unfortunately limited to a 320GB PATA drive, otherwise it is fine and still looks fresh on my desk (if it were there and not under my bed...)

The lighting on all products annoys me, I work away at sea half of the year, and my office is my cabin. I therefore effectively sleep next to my desk and have to use a quantity of products to cover up all of the lights. This is effective until the ship takes on a large roll, then all of the 'light shades' fall over and have to be replaced!

I think the new ribbed Lacie drives are both good looking and effective in their purpose (ie silent heat dissipation). People complain about Lacie's reliability but I have never had a problem, then again I think my 320GB was originally 160GB...

Although I started this thread looking for a mini form factor HDD enclosure, I think I will end up getting a Lacie (which is kind of the same form factor) but not sure exactly which one yet.
 
Does anybody think the Lacie's heat dissipation would be seriously compromised by being stacked under my mini? I do hold some archived files on it but it's main use is media, it could be in use for a couple of hours if I am watching a movie.
 
dubhe said:
Does anybody think the Lacie's heat dissipation would be seriously compromised by being stacked under my mini? I do hold some archived files on it but it's main use is media, it could be in use for a couple of hours if I am watching a movie.
Click to expand...

dude if it is... don't stack it. it'd probably be really ugly
 
dubhe said:
The lighting on all products annoys me
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Agreed. I have glowing blue lights on all three of my external hard drives. And a big glowing blue light on my Brother multifunction printer. Combined, they light up the room at night.

And don't get me started on the huge glowing blue logo on the front of my subwoofer on my home theater system. :mad:

Anyone out there with some expertise in getting aluminum casings fabricated? Perhaps a community-designed enclosure (without glowing lights) is in order.

I'd love to see a great boutique-quality enclosure sold exclusively as an enclosure only - let the user supply their own drives. There are plenty of bare enclosures available on the market, but they all look like cheap junk.
 
LagunaSol said:
but they all look like cheap junk.
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That's because they are all cheap junk ;)

I remember taking a USB hub apart because it had a really bright blue LED in it, I placed some black electrical tape over the LED and put it back together, worked a treat :)

I'm all for a quality enclosure to put our own drives in. Besides the actual enclosure, can you buy quality boards with all of the plugs on for the drive and cables? Or would you just borrow one from one of these cheap, junky enclosures?
 
dubhe said:
I'm all for a quality enclosure to put our own drives in. Besides the actual enclosure, can you buy quality boards with all of the plugs on for the drive and cables? Or would you just borrow one from one of these cheap, junky enclosures?
Click to expand...

My enclosure design has a backplate that drops into a slot at the rear of the enclosure (held in place by the removable top plate where you add the drive). This backplate contains the connectors (and circuit board) for your specific needs. Want a quad interface? No problem - buy a quad plate. Only need USB 2.0? Simple - USB 2.0 back plate. What about Firewire 1600 someday? No big deal - there will be a drop-in plate with Firewire 1600 someday. No reason for the enclosure itself to ever become obsolete.

Order the enclosure, the back plate you need, and add your own drive.
 
LagunaSol said:
My enclosure design has a backplate that drops into a slot at the rear of the enclosure (held in place by the removable top plate where you add the drive). This backplate contains the connectors (and circuit board) for your specific needs. Want a quad interface? No problem - buy a quad plate. Only need USB 2.0? Simple - USB 2.0 back plate. What about Firewire 1600 someday? No big deal - there will be a drop-in plate with Firewire 1600 someday. No reason for the enclosure itself to ever become obsolete.

Order the enclosure, the back plate you need, and add your own drive.
Click to expand...

How many drives would you enclosure hold? I might only want one now but may add to rather than upgrade in the future. Is that an option?

Do you remember the Acorn Risc PC? You could add layers as you expanded!
 

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I envisioned only a single drive in the enclosure, with the enclosure designed to be stacked (and look good doing so).
 
Would it be more aesthetically pleasing to remove the bottom, not the top? That way the top and sides could be continuous.

Let me know if you ever go into production! And please don't make the power brick too large, in fact if you could somehow leach power from my mac mini brick it would be perfect!
 
dubhe said:
Would it be more aesthetically pleasing to remove the bottom, not the top?
Click to expand...

Actually, you're right now that I think about it. I started with a top plate, but in my last design draft changed it to a bottom plate for the very reason you mention. But it's all just a fantasy. Tooling costs to get something like this going are horrendous (AFAIK). And who knows if such a product would even sell at a price that would justify its premium build quality.

I know I'd buy it, but...
 
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