External Hard Drive/enclosure Choice Options

[lepetitmartien]

Anyway, there will certainly be delays on powerbooks during the time has to catch up the demand.

[Seth Peterson]

I just recorded a show last weekend with my 15' 1.5 g4, motu828 using a lacie firewire400. The things been great. ONe of the drunken band members nocked it on to a hardwood floor and the thing survied. I also us it at home for recording and have never had any nosie bleed even with my large condensors cranked up. looks slick and small. I usualy tuck it behind my g4 and forget to turn it off sometimes because its so smooth.

[keybie]

Thanks for all the comments everybody!

Getting an enclosure that fills all my needs looks to become a hard job unfortunately
The "Pleiades" (or whatever it's called -the same enclosure seems to go under several brand and model names) looks very good in my opinion, but the noise-factor is very important as well, so hearing about how "open" the design of it is (probably because of the lacking fan) makes me highly sceptical.

However, I came across this site, which shows all the different drive enclosures that have that G5 Powermac design.

The G-raid from "G-tech" looks very sturdy, stylish and professional, but is a bit bulky for a single drive, and like the majority of enclosures it uses an external power-adapter. And as far as I can see you can only buy it with a drive, which is a pity since I want to hand-pick the drive mechanism to ensure I get the quietest and best performing drive.

Moving on there's the "Dual-G" from MacPower, which is also a bit bulky for a single drive, and again it uses an external power supply.

Mac upgrades' Mini-G comes in different sizes. The single-drive enclosure only has Firewire 400, but from what I've been told earlier (in this thread? Can't remember), a Firewire 800 drive isn't of much use on a Powerbook anyway. Still, the single-drive case looks a bit weird, so there's a Dual drive enclosure. Unfortunately, they both use external power supplies as the rest.

Personally, I think that the OWC "Mercury elite" series looks the most attractive. They're not too bulky and can be stacked on top of each other. They also claim to be "very quiet". They're sold either with drives (above) or just the enclosures. Again, they utilise external power supplies.

So, anyone have any experiences with any of these?
Note: I'm not specifically looking for a "G5 Powermac" matching enclosure (this will be for a 15" Powerbook), but everything else I've come across seems so geeky and silly looking to me, and the enclosures I've referred to seem a little more "pro" looking to me. But if there are other enclosure out there that look "pro" I'm definitely interested. Particularly if there are matching cases which can room a DVD-writer.

[Lotus17]

Heya. I sorta skimmed through this entire thread and didn't read a lot of details, but I would like to share my experience.

I bought a 160GB Seagate at 7200 RPM and 8MB Cache. I threw it in one of those Pleiades cases and it works wonders. I use the FW800 feature and I definately like the speeds that I achieve with it. Like people say, you aren't going to get a silent drive, but I definately threw mine on the floor away from a lot of things, and I barely hear it. If I pay close attention, then yeah, but if you can put it in a remote location then that rocks. I would definately look into the chipsets that come in all of these enclosures. I know that the Oxford 922 (FW800/FW400/USB2.0) and the 911 (FW400/USB2.0) are really good ones. The studios at here Ball State University, use the Icecube FW800/FW400 enclosures along with the whole Glyph Key system. They work really well. So, I would definately suggest something with the Oxford 922 chipset. Good luck with the whole search!

[keybie]

Macpower 'Pleiades' drive enclosure

this has an eSATA port on it, the powerbook does not. the best specification that applies here is for FW800. (Firewire 800 (1394b) up to 800Mbps (100MB/s)

Oops! My mistake.
I gave the wrong link. I meant the
Macpower "Pleiades" with Firewire 400/800 and USB.

However, I've been leaning more towards one of the OWC (Other World Computing) enclosures. The single-drive Mercury Elite-AL pro enclosure looks very similar to the MacPower Pleiades, but the front is a little different (and better looking in my opinion).

Then there's the Mercury Elite-AL pro RAID enclosure from OWC.

If it's possible to use that same enclosure for two separate drives then it might come in handy for later if I buy a second drive of the same size for backing up the first drive, but I don't know if this is possible.
Alternatively I would have to buy a second single-drive enclosure, which would mean yet another power adapter and Firewire cables....
(I read a review for that enclosure, but there was no mention of using it in other ways than a RAID setup).

This post has been edited by keybie: Fri 4 Nov 2005, 21:18

[lepetitmartien]

beware some of these enclosure consider the drives as one, so RAID is mandatory (RAID 0 stripping as far as I've seen, not RAID 1 mirroring) so read closely the techtalk.

[keybie]

beware some of these enclosure consider the drives as one, so RAID is mandatory (RAID 0 stripping as far as I've seen, not RAID 1 mirroring) so read closely the techtalk.

Hmmm.... that was what i was afraid of
Ultimately i was hoping that I could put two drives into that single enclosure, have them act as two separate drives, and even have one switch on with the help of the enclosure's power-switch while the other one (the backup drive) can be turned on/off from the computer (so as to save tear/wear, and also make less noise).

But I understand that the recommended way to go about this is to buy a second enclosure for that backup drive then?

[lepetitmartien]

I think it's a better move, that's my use too. The enclosure I've seen are either RAID minded, or have evil fans to make some noise. Also, I've never seen one enclosure for 2 drives where you could switch one off while other is on.

I have 5 drives near the computer, but only 2 are on most of the time.

Remember too that it's to switch on/off an IDE drive which kills it in the end.

[keybie]

I think it's a better move, that's my use too. The enclosure I've seen are either RAID minded, or have evil fans to make some noise. Also, I've never seen one enclosure for 2 drives where you could switch one off while other is on.

With my Atari ST computer I've experienced that it is indeed possible to "power down" a drive (at least SCSI drives), so that's why I got that idea that there might be a "soft power-switch" option in IDE.
But perhaps there's no "default power-off" option available, even by setting the drive jumpers in a specific way?

I have 5 drives near the computer, but only 2 are on most of the time.

5 drives!! Does that make a lot of noise in the end? Why so many drives?

Remember too that it's to switch on/off an IDE drive which kills it in the end.

You mean switching on/off drives will kill them in the end?
Hmmm... that makes me think... perhaps, even IF it's possible to turn a drive on and off via software commands, the drive must have power applied to it somehow, only not to the drive motor, so it doesn't spin.
Still, it's not very common for the drive electronics to fail, is it? I thought it was mostly due to mechanical tear/wear.

Apart from the issue of only having a single AC power adapter and only one Firewire cable when using a RAID enclosure I was thinking that a built-in fan would be reassuring. I've been told elsewhere that I should never use a hard drive in a fanless enclosure for more than 30 minutes at a time because the heat buildup will kill it in the end.
Then again I see so many fanless enclosures around which makes me wonder if they're fine anyway. I'm pretty confused in other words

The RAID enclosure from OWC has a built in fan, and according to this review it's a quiet fan.