[suryo]

If you plan to travel much, you may want to consider getting two laptop drives and two 2.5" enclosures. This will be a more expensive option but will save the hassle of having to carry extra power supplies and cables - laptop size disks can be powered over Firewire. Should cost around $350-$380 for 2x160gb drives if you shop in the right places.

[soadaholic]

I've made heaps of drives in the past.. and my advice is DONT cheap out on a external case.. I've had lots of problems with the no name cases with things like the plugs pins breaking and things like that... get a good brand.. worth it in the long run..

good luck!

[madmacs]

I am in the process of building a RAID0 with 2x500Gb Western Digital in a NewerTech Guardian case.

I am still waiting for the drives to arrive but the case feels substantial. Case cost around $250 from epowermac.com.au.

I have had one 320Gb Maxtor failed within 1 month and the other one with triple interface still going OK.

Definitely don't skim on the drive case. Life of the drive definitely has something to do with the case... power, ventilation, etc.

To restore from backup and frustration of a failed drive more than outweigh the extra cost of the drive.

After trying a few brands like seagate, lacie and maxtor, I reckon building my own is the best. I get to chose my own drives and case. Works out slightly more expensive but the pre-build drives seem to be more tricky to take apart.

[IanB]

Thanks for your help. Some good advice there.
As far as pre-built one's go, any thoughts on epowermac's 250G, 16M Hardbook versus their Icecube Pleiades Gen II combo 250G 16M? (I know one is portable and the other isn't). They seem like they might be reasonably well equipped at a good price.

[Arkhum_Eramak]

The IceCubes are great - I have an original one and its never skipped a beat. The newer ones look much better ventilated too. Dunno 'bout the other one, but you can't go wrong with an icecube B)

[Currawong]

The IceCubes are definitely the go, I've never had one fail. Lacie on the other hand....

This thread is now the relevant sticky for this question, as it has better answers to start with.

[vicmeldrew]

Originally Posted by Epowermac

Icecube Combo 250GB 16MB $ 239.00

Icecube Combo 320GB 16MB $ 249.00

Icecube Combo 400GB 16MB $ 289.00

Icecube Combo 500GB 16MB $ 339.00

Icecube Combo 750GB 16MB $ 489.00

I agree the Icecubes are great, although I have never used the USB port on my one. The lack of a fan is a huge advantage IMO. A larger size like the 320 or 400Gb might be better value than a 250 Gb though.

[gallet]

I've had a LaCie Porsche P3 250GB Firewire for about a year that cost $285 then and I'm about to buy another 500GB LaCie P3 Firewire from Expansys for $268 delivered.

You should get Firewire and not USB because you can't make a bootable clone on a USB only drive. I've also heard that FW is better at handling audio, something to do with the way USB handles the info in packets.

[Cassius]

I am confused about this storage situation - I have a Lacie Porsche external drive for a backup - it does.

I would like to move to a backup/media storage solution for my WiFi network, AppleTV, iMac G5 ( although new iMAc as soon as they are announced) and a few iPods about the place.


I reckon a terrabyte should do? but how? - via an Airport Extreme? or off the iMac?

macheads please advise

tah

[Kirium]

Originally Posted by gallet

I've also heard that FW is better at handling audio, something to do with the way USB handles the info in packets.

Do you have any more info about that?

It's the first I've heard of it, and surprising too because there's alot of DAC/headphone amplifiers out there (at prices up to $1500), that feature USB input, like the Meier Audio Corda Opera.

[NORMANDY]

Originally Posted by yinyang

i have two Lacie d2 triple interface externals and have no complaints. i did have a maxtor III but that went back because after six months it developed an I/O error that didn't really impress me, so I exchanged it for the second Lacie. the 300Gb/320Gb models seems to very well priced at the moment since i think they're trying to phase one of those models out as the lowest capacity for the triple interface.

i've also heard that the porsche design ones aren't as reliable as the d2, but that's anecdotal!!

Dito, I have the 500 GB ones at home and at work.. never let me down yet.. and having Firewire 400/800 and USB is a real Bonus....and they are very solid construction!

[Brewster]

Originally Posted by Kirium

Do you have any more info about that?

It's the first I've heard of it, and surprising too because there's alot of DAC/headphone amplifiers out there (at prices up to $1500), that feature USB input, like the Meier Audio Corda Opera.

I was told when I got my protools setup that the external firewire drive was important to record to because your internal drive can get very busy with software instruments etc. I suspect this is less of an issue than it used to be but if you start using lots of tracks it still can be.

On the firewire v usb issue; firewire is better at consistent high speed transfers which is what you have the drive doing when recording audio. The digital interface itself apparently isn't limited by usb as much as writing files is. If you are recording then is stands to reason that it's good to separate the digital audio traffic (usb) and the file writing traffic (firewire).

There is bound to be more informed folk on this issue but this is what I've been told.

[Kirium]

That makes sense...

It sounds like it's not that much of an issue when just listening to music, as opposed to recording and editing..

[[schmick]]

Hey Everyone,

Following on from all the discussion on External Hard Drives, it's time for myself to find an external solution for my Powerbook...

Am wanting to build my own Enclosure using a Seagate HD... My question is in regards to which case to use, I am considering 3 options, two at similar price points, one substantially more expensive... Options are:

1. Coolermaster X-Craft, Combo USB/Firewire, $50-$60?
2. Vantec Nexstar, Combo USB/Firewire, ~$50,$60?
3. IceCube, Combo USB/Firewire, ~$100

My question is, I'm currently leaning more towards the Coolermaster Enclosure, however, does anybody have any recommendations against or in regard to spending almost double on an IceCube enclosure or other?

Lastly, can anybody confirm if the Coolermaster Cases utilise the Oxford Chipset?

Any feedback/advice/experiences or comments appreciated...

Cheers...

[kingsdesign]

Hey I have a new lacie safe 320 porche drive.
Have to say the speeds are very good on usb.
The drive has been purchased in europe cause it was so cheap there don't know about prices here. The drive has a fingerprint reader as well so everything is safe on your drive.

hope it helps

Rik

[FineWine]

I know I and others have brought this subject up before (iPod Touch issues) but wouldn't it be nice if with the release of Leopard and its embedded Time Machine backup program, that Apple bring out an Apple (with their magic touch designed) External Hard Drive/s 500Gb - 1Tb etc [USB, F400/F800] that can be connected and automatically recognised and therefore very portable, either by direct connection to any Mac or via Airport Express/Extreme and also be able to have connection to iTV (for those with large libraries) and have the ability of multiple partitions in Mac format e.g. Time Machine partition, iTV partition, iMovie, iPhoto, FCE/FCP etc partition. Just a thought.

[Nuts4Ever]

Originally Posted by stewiesno1

As in one of the posts above , buy the USB2/Firewire enclosure and install the hard drive yourself. I would buy a Seagate drive with the 16mb cache and get the five year warranty as opposed to the other brands which mostly come with three years or less. They are much the same price too. Also look to get an enclosure that has a decent fan in to vent as much hot air out as possible.As also mentioned above , if you really need to backup huge data files as fast as you can then the triple interface with USB2/Firewire 400/ Firewire 800 is the way to go although they are not as common as USB2/Firewire 400 and that much more expensive as well.
Stewie

+1 stewiesno1

He mentions all the important considerations and suggestions including the fan and the five year warranties. The reason for this is the fans help to keep the drives cooler especially in harsher environments, and the drives are built tougher to begin with and are more of what is commercially acceptable and used by companies and corporations who can not be bothered with drives failures that tend to cost them money and loss of revenue due to down time.

I have had much success with many different Mfg. drives over the years that only had one year warranties, but find the ones with the five year warranties are much more to my needs and my client's needs. the dual USB/Firewire interfaces at least have been a savior in a pinch. Most of the USB/eSata interfaces seem to be ok, I have not seen a failure in these yet.

The other important thing is the interface, there are several out there that are not really up to the task of consistent power and use. I have had more interface failures over the years for the firewire ports failing, but this is getting better with the newer technology and chipsets

The chipset is also a concern as I have tested several and some will work ok as long as one does not use the same Mfg. for another drive set. i.e. two interfaces with same drives attached would not recognize the other was also there and conflicted with the mounting of both drives simultaneously.

One point I will mention as I see many her thinking or doing this is to NOT use raid 0 or 1.

Although the operating systems support it now it is still unsafe as if raid fails the operating systems tools do not give enough advanced warning/notifications of eminent failure. If you use Raid 0 (Stripped) and a drive failure you are pretty assured you will loss most your data without the proper advanced warnings in place. If you use Raid 1 (Mirrored) you will have a backup of data from the drive(s) it is mirroring, but you also run the risk of the corruption of the main drives actually transferring to the mirrored drives without the proper advanced warnings in place. (A mirrored volume is a complete logical representation of separate volume copies).

I would not recommend any raid unless one is willing to spend the extra money to do at least Raid 5. The extra cost is in redundancy of the drive quantity and often an extra raid card that supports it. One also needs to have the drives matched of course and an extra drive that also keeps the Distributed Parity. Distributed parity requires all but one drive to be present to operate; drive failure requires replacement, but the array is not destroyed by a single drive failure. Another main difference here is Raid 5 and above is a true hardware solution while usually Raid 0 and 1 are mostly software solutions with less than adequate warning systems of failures.

Raid 7 or better is the best of both worlds. Striping and mirroring with adequate warning systems of failures.

[Mikey]

Originally Posted by [schmick]

Hey Everyone,

Following on from all the discussion on External Hard Drives, it's time for myself to find an external solution for my Powerbook...

Am wanting to build my own Enclosure using a Seagate HD... My question is in regards to which case to use, I am considering 3 options, two at similar price points, one substantially more expensive... Options are:

1. Coolermaster X-Craft, Combo USB/Firewire, $50-$60?
2. Vantec Nexstar, Combo USB/Firewire, ~$50,$60?
3. IceCube, Combo USB/Firewire, ~$100

My question is, I'm currently leaning more towards the Coolermaster Enclosure, however, does anybody have any recommendations against or in regard to spending almost double on an IceCube enclosure or other?

Lastly, can anybody confirm if the Coolermaster Cases utilise the Oxford Chipset?

Any feedback/advice/experiences or comments appreciated...

Cheers...

The Vantec enclosure works fine for me. It is relatively slow, but I just need it for SuperDuper backups, so it doesn't need to be fast (about 10 mins for a 80 gig drive, which is probably limited by the read/write times of the drives rather than transfer rates?) - I just needed it to be cheap! If you are gonna be using it for video editing, steer clear. They are slow. Not Oxford chipset.

[Remorhaz]

Originally Posted by [schmick]

1. Coolermaster X-Craft, Combo USB/Firewire, $50-$60?
2. Vantec Nexstar, Combo USB/Firewire, ~$50,$60?
3. IceCube, Combo USB/Firewire, ~$100

My question is, I'm currently leaning more towards the Coolermaster Enclosure, however, does anybody have any recommendations against or in regard to spending almost double on an IceCube enclosure or other?

Lastly, can anybody confirm if the Coolermaster Cases utilise the Oxford Chipset?

Any feedback/advice/experiences or comments appreciated...

I have a Coolermaster X-Craft combo enclosure (mine is USB/eSata tho) and I've had no problems with it (connected directly to my MBP or my Airport Extreme).

[[schmick]]

Anybody know if the X-Craft Enclosure uses the Oxford Chipset for Firewire?

I also saw these Sarotech Hardbox Enclosures... USB/Combo and also have an internal power supply... Do these use the Oxford Chipset to play nice with Mac and has anybody had any experiences with these cases... They look the goods and the internal power supply is definately a plus...

Feedback appreciated...

Cheers..