Comments: Add yours

1. On June 1st, 2006 at 4:38 pm Jeremy said:

I also looked around alot for the same thing. I ended up just buying an external USB/Firewire empty case with a fan. Supply my own internal HD and I am good to go. This way it’s not in a seeled case and I can switch HDs with ease. Seems to save on the cash also. Internal drives are a lot less expensive and you determine what size drive you need. Can’t go wrong!

Good luck in your search!

2. On June 1st, 2006 at 4:54 pm Alan said:

Never ever had a problem with my Lacie d2 although there are probably better versions of it out by now…

3. On June 2nd, 2006 at 9:20 am Andrew Taylor said:

I use a self-built external drive (£10 caddy with USB interface plus spare IDE hard drive) but recently purchased a 100Gb Maxtor OneTouch III. Not sure if this supports Macs or Firewire interfaces. For those looking for a PC solution, it is recommended though.

4. On June 2nd, 2006 at 9:37 am Stuart Colville said:

@Everyone: thanks for the tips.

@Jeremy: I will look into caddies as it definitely sounds like a good way to keep the cost down.

@Andrew: the Maxtor drives do seem to be pretty good. There’s a Maxtor OneTouch II FireWire 800 Edition which has Firewire 400 and firewire 800 as well as USB 2.0. Seems like that’s a good one to go for.

5. On June 5th, 2006 at 10:42 am Chris Heilmann said:

I am using the Sony VAIO 2.5″ ones you can get for a fiver on ebay http://qurl.com/mvb1c with a Fujitsu HD. Not really grand for all-time-use, but perfect to carry vast amounts of data around with you.

6. On June 5th, 2006 at 10:48 am Stuart Colville said:

@Chris: That looks like a natty little caddy Chris. The only problem is I really wanted something I can boot my mac from so I’ll need firewire. However, for cheap portable storage this looks like a good one to check out.

7. On June 5th, 2006 at 11:53 am James / AkaXakA said:

I just bought a casing which you can just screw a normal HD into. Very cheap, and you’ll save a lot on the HD itself too.

8. On June 9th, 2006 at 6:51 pm gzip said:

Definitely go w/ a case, pref USB2+Firewire but forget Maxtor! They fail and have weak warranties. Seagate all the way, 3-5 yr warranty, can’t be beat.

9. On June 13th, 2006 at 9:05 am Jim Callender said:

Ive got a Lacie 250GB ext. hard drive. Have dropped in price recently, and a nifty piece of hardware, using it on USB2 and acts as backup as well as a home for around 90GB of MP3’s.

When movies become better at downloading, may experiment to see how this works thru the drive. Question is will the computer processor be able to cope though?

10. On June 14th, 2006 at 6:43 pm Steve said:

I’m using a Maxtor 1 Touch 300 gigger..
I use it with SuperDuper and it’s been fine, however this is the 2nd one I have. Eight months after I initially started using it the Maxtor just stopped working. Couldn’t mount it or access it at all. No idea why. I returned it to the place I bought it and 10 days later I had a new one. Hope I don’t have to do this again in a few months…

11. On June 16th, 2006 at 9:57 pm Luke said:

I’ve had a Lacie d2 320GB for about a year now – no problems at all. The build quality is extremely sturdy – a chunk of aluminium essentially!

Spec:

1 x FireWire 400
2 x FireWire 800
1 x USB2
No fan (aluminium case disipates the heat)

Only issues are the external power supply, a little bit of noise (noisier than my Mac Mini), and I’m sure that an aluminium case isn’t the lightest option – if that is an issue.

I would definately recommend it.

12. On June 20th, 2006 at 2:26 pm kubox said:

I have a G-TECH G-Drive – http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm

It’s FW & bootable (I recomend SuperDuper! for making clones), the case feels the most rigid and tough out of any I’ve tried, and it has a great cooling system that negates the need for a fan. Hard drive can be slightly noisy when it spins-up, but you can’t hear it too much over my mini.

Oh, plus it looks cool in a kind-of industrial way.