[dshea_32665]

I think I need to get an external hard drive for music storage. I have looked on ebay and there are a bunch of Buslink drives available. Anybody have experience with these? any other recommendations, preferrably somewhat portable to travel or to take back and forth to work?

dshea

 

[thrice]

I have a LaCie 500GB drive (not exactly portable

) but a numer of my friends have LaCie's portable drives and have had good luck with them. I've only had the 500GB drive for a month or so now, but no problems at all.

 

[proxops-pete]

If you are looking for portability, I'd suggest getting 2.5" laptop drives with matching 2.5" external enclosure and you'd be set!

 

[triodesteve]

I bought a Toshiba 80g laptop drive (2.5") off of ebay and put it into a Macally case. The drives are obviously a lot more expensive than the larger ones, but it's small, quiet, and doesn't need an additional power source.
Thank goodness for Apple Lossless...
BTW, I'm using mine with an iBook
Steve

 

[dshea_32665]

I was talking to somebody today about doing this very thing. He told me he bought a couple of cases from CompUSA and when the drives go on sale, he snatches them up. I may look into this. Will any firewire drive work with these cases and are they all MAC compatible? I know nothing about any of this although I am fairly saavy with Macs. Do these drives come in multiple sizes, and how would you know that you had a case that would work?

dshea

 

[proxops-pete]

The external cases come in 3 usual sizes... 2.5" (laptop drives), 3.5" (regular HDDs), and 5.25" (optical drives). Most should be Mac-compatible as long as they support the standard Firewire specs. But to make sure and for your piece of mind, read the cases of the external cases as they should specify there...

 

[Nospam]

Assuming you're running OS X, any Firewire or USB enclosure will work just fine. In general, I don't recommend USB for storage devices. Firewire (400 and 800) will give you much better real-world transfer rates than USB 2.0. I typically buy the FW-only versions since they're cheaper, and both my Mac and PC have FW, so I have no use for USB.

You need to check for a couple of things:

1) Make sure the enclosure supports ATA-6. Sometimes they'll simply say "Supports Drives Up To 400GB" or something similar. Basically, you don't want to get stuck with an older enclosure that doesn't support the new, larger drives.

2) If it's a plastic enclosure, a fan would be a good idea.

Even if it's an aluminum enclosure, unless the drive makes metal-to-metal contact with the case, it should have a fan. I've seen some enclosure that isolate the drive with rubber mounts. This doesn't allow for heat dissipation through conduction, and there's not enough convection cooling inside the case to properly cool the drive.

The dumbest one I saw, was this (relatively expensive) aluminum enclosure, touting the fact that it keeps the drive cool. However the entire top and bottom surfaces were covered with thick plastic slabs (for looks, I suppose).


BTW, this is the smallest, quietest enclosure I've found for 3.5" drives: http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDeta...232;p:10501223

 

[dshea_32665]

Thanks neospam. I am really a noob at this. Would I just now purchase an internal drive and mount it into the case? Is there a preferred reliable brand? Seagate was mentioned above. Do you put any 3.25" internal drive into this case? or are there different sizes and specs that you have to match with this enclosure since it is so small?

Thanks,
dshea

 

[kugino]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dshea_32665 Thanks neospam. I am really a noob at this. Would I just now purchase an internal drive and mount it into the case? Is there a preferred reliable brand? Seagate was mentioned above. Do you put any 3.25" internal drive into this case? or are there different sizes and specs that you have to match with this enclosure since it is so small? Thanks, dshea

yes, just buy a 3.25" drive and mount it inside. the case should come with everything you need to mount (haven't looked at the case...i'm just assuming all cases come with all the screws and plugs necessary)...you might just need a firewire cable. seagate is good, hitachi is good...they're all pretty good these days.

 

[3lusiv3]

I don't know which drives or enclosures are best, but I would try to find a quiet drive and an enclosure that can contain drive noise. Some combinations seem a bit too noisy, which is why I spend the extra and buy ready-built name brand external enclosures.

 

[Nospam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dshea_32665 Thanks neospam. I am really a noob at this. Would I just now purchase an internal drive and mount it into the case? Is there a preferred reliable brand? Seagate was mentioned above. Do you put any 3.25" internal drive into this case? or are there different sizes and specs that you have to match with this enclosure since it is so small? Thanks, dshea

Yup. It's actually fairly easy, once you figure out the jumper setting on the drive. The bare drives usually have pictures of the jumper settings, and you generally set it to "Cable Select". On rare occasions, I've heard people had to set it to "Master" (or "Master, no Slave", in the case of Western Digital). Every enclosure I've seen comes with the necessary screws.

You have a choice between 2.5" and 3.5" drives. All 3.5" drives currently sold are the 1/3 height (or 1" height) variety, which will fit in any 3.5" enclosure. The 2.5" drives are mostly 9.5mm in thickness, while a few are 12.5mm. Some 2.5" enclosure will only work with the 9.5mm drives, so read the fine print.

Most 2.5" enclosures are USB only. As I mentioned before, I do not recommend USB for storage devices. FW is a much more robust protocol that was designed from the ground up for this task, and it shows in real-world transfer speed (especially if you've got multiple FW drives/devices).

The 2.5" FW enclosures can draw power over the FW bus, as long as you've got a proper 6-pin FW port (as opposed to the idiotic 4-pin "iLink" port that Sony insists on saddling their Vaio laptop line with). Since you've got a PowerBook (or was it an iBook?), you're fine.

In addition to not needing a power brick for the enclosure, the 2.5" drives are more durable than 3.5" drives while they are operating. However, as long as you don't knock your drive around while it's running, it shouldn't be a factor. The downside of 2.5" drives, is that they're significantly more expensive per GB and slower.

I highly recommend 3.5" drives from Seagate, followed by Hitachi. Maxtor is also OK, though I've heard they are a slightly louder than Hitachi and Seagate. I do not recommend Western Digital. They are loud, run hot, and they have their connectors in a slightly different location than everyone else, which can be a problem with some small enclosures. I personally have both a 200GB Seagate and 250GB Hitachi drives in use as extra storage and backups. My 200GB WD has been banished to my ReplayTV (so I won't have to listen to the incessant whine of the drive motor).

The 3.5" enclosure I mentioned earlier has been my favorite enclosure for over a year. It's the most compact aluminum enclosure for 3.5" drives I've found, and it's absolutely silent (no fan).

Wow, I sure talk a lot

 

[dshea_32665]

Wow, thanks guys. Seems simple enough.

dshea

 

[lini]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dshea_32665 Seems simple enough.

It really is. For the actual drive, I'd recommend a Samsung model, though - preferably the ones with 5400 rotations/minute, as these will be even quieter and cooler than the slightly faster models with 7200 rotations/minute. Like this one: http://www.samsung.com/Products/Hard...es_SV1604N.htm


Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

 

[dshea_32665]

Thanks everybody for your help. Got my case and drive and it works beautifully.

cheers,
dshea