External Hard disk

[ricbac]

Hi!
I just bought Western Digital 120GB harddisk
and want to make him external.
I saw some external enclosure kits on Ebay with either USB 2 or firewire connectors.
Which one I should use?And what company(If it matters).

Thanks

[terrorbeat]

Probably either would be OK. I know I've had good luck with Firewire, only just got USB 2.0 the other day and I don't have any USB2.0 devices, so I can't comment on it with any authority.

[maggotcontrol]

Firewire is preferred as it has better 'actual' throughput and lower CPU usage than USB 2.0.

yoshi
www.studiokobari.com (http://www.studiokobari.com)

[Z13]

I got a 3.5" enclosure from www.general-house.com (http://www.general-house.com) for $77. It has both USB2.0 and Firewire. The important thing is that it has the Oxford 911 chipset. Most external drives do I think.

general-house has several types of enclosures. I got the 3.5" which is just for the hard drive. It's smaller (f/u/w my laptop), but then it uses an external power supply. I'm going to get their 5.25" enclosure http://www.general-house.com/gh_ME-345U2F.html next (both USB2.0/IEEE1394). This way (I'm guessing) I should be able to mount a removable hard drive in this enclosure so I can easily swap hard drives. Of course I'll have to dismount them first (not hot-swappable), but at least I can easily change the HD's. The 5.25" model incorporates the power supply inside, so all you have to do is plug it in to a 110-240VAC source. On/off switch in back.

These http://www.general-house.com/gh_enclosuresuusb1394.html are their dual (USB2.0/Firewire) enclosures. The USB2.0 only is about $50 and a Firewire only is about $60. The combo is $77. I've used both without problems.

No way would I get a complete external drive - I want to decide which components (HD, etc.) I'm using.

[This message has been edited by Z13 (edited 05-13-2003).]

[nakedjackson]

You should check out the firewire bays from granite digital. They are the only firewire bays that i know of that are optimized for audio applications. My school got 1 for every protools station and they are working beatifully so far with no hiccups.

[dawboxpro]

I am using two external enlosures right now with 2 80g seagate drives. The enclosures have the new oxford chipset and they work great.

The Seagate drives are more silent so they do not make much noise.

[Michael Quayle]

An important thing to consider, that I recently learned, whilst making a purchase of an external hard drive enclosure. I recently bought a joint USB2.0/Firewire enclosure which I am connecting via the firewire interface, into which I have put a brand new Western Digital 120GB drive (which have come down in price a lot in the last 6 months since I bought my last one BTW). For the most part it all runs fine, but as I attempted to shovel (an admittedly enormous load of) data onto the drive, in batches of about 10-15Gb, I started getting "delayed write errors" saying that the rest of the data transfer could not be completed, after which the 2 partitions I had created on the drive promptly made themselves invisible to windows, and only a reboot would cure the problem. After a lot of headscratching and probing I found myself buried deep within the MS knowledge base wherein lay my answer: my (cheap ass, as I now know) hard drive enclosure came as standard with a 40pin IDE connector, whereas all these modern drives use 80pin connectors. That's been the source of my problem. I haven't been able to take this unit back yet, and I can't afford to replace it, so I have been bumbling along on the 40pin for the past few days, and now that I am mainly reading off the drive (my mp3 and sample storage) I haven't had the same problem since. So before you buy make DOUBLE CERTAIN the enclosure takes an 80pin connector.

BTW if anybody could give me a good reason why continued usage of this 40 pin connector is going to be bad news for my system in terms of hard drive lifespan or other issues, I'm all ears (although according to my mother, I'm all mouth)

Cheers,
Mike

**Edited to sort out my shoddy typing**

[This message has been edited by Michael Quayle (edited 05-13-2003).]

[Carlo]

No personal experience with the enclosure, but i saw this earlier today at http://www.hotdealsclub.com/

CompGeeks.com has a dual external hard drive enclosure for about $50 plus shipping.
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MAP-302F-01

Features/Specifications (quoted from CompGeeks site)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

External Firewire 1394 Drive Casing
Oxford Semiconductor OXFW911-TQ-A / Realtek RTL8801 Chipset
Two 3.5-inch Drive Bays
Two IDE/ATA Connectors
Works with Any 3.5-inch IDE Device (Hard Drive, Zip Drive, Etc...)
Successfully tested with a 250GB hard drive (Maxtor)
(NOTE: Some older Macs may not recognize more than 128GB of each drive.)
(NOTE: Certain Western Digital drives larger than 120GB may not work.)
Two External IEEE 1394 Firewire Ports (6-pin type)
Power Switch / LEDs on Front
Power is autoswitching 90-264 AC A 50/60Hz
8 x 8 cm Fan mounted on back.
Supports: Windows 98SE, Me, 2000
Successfully tested in Windows XP.
Also supports Mac OS 8.6 and up, including Mac OS X 10.1.2, w/built-in drivers
Includes: Case, Driver CD, Power Cord, Mounting Screws

[radiant_city]

Originally posted by Michael Quayle:
BTW if anybody could give me a good reason why continued usage of this 40 pin connector is going to be bad news for my system in terms of hard drive lifespan or other issues, I'm all ears

Michael AFAIK the extra 40 wires in an 80-wire ribbon cable are there for insulation. They don't actually carry double the data, but the data that gets there is shielded a little better from crosstalk and RFI.

As regards your hard drive I don't think you'll either extend the life of your drive or shorten it appreciably, though theoretically if the device to which the drive is sending data doesn't have to make a second request for a packet (thanks to above-mentioned crosstalk and RFI) that would constitute a savings. To say nothing of the efficiency of the transfer.

Hope that helps -- hope even more that my reasoning is sound -- Rick

[Michael Quayle]

Rick ,that's very useful information - thanks very much. I can sleep tonight in less ignorance than when I woke up this morning http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

[xtern]

why not just buy an external HD rather than getting a HD and an enclosure? Are the premade external ones slower somehow? What am I missing here? I wanna go to sleep less ignorant like Michael did http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif!

[maggotcontrol]

With premade ones, you don't exactly know what kind of hard drive is in there..nor do the manufacturers list the actual chipset controller used in the enclosure which is crucial in determining the required performance.

Yoshi
www.studiokobari.com (http://www.studiokobari.com)

[Michael Quayle]

Originally posted by xtern:
why not just buy an external HD rather than getting a HD and an enclosure? Are the premade external ones slower somehow? What am I missing here? I wanna go to sleep less ignorant like Michael did http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif!


In my case it was also an issue of price. I can pick up a WD120GB drive for £90 and and enclosure for £65, making a total of £155 for an external 120Gb drive. This compares quite favourably with the £220 my friend just shelled out for his LaCie 80Gb drive.

[xtern]

both good points, cheers for the responce.