Is the Oxford 911 chipset important for Ext. HD?

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Is the Oxford 911 chipset important for Ext. HD?

Hi,

I'm having trouble here in Canada locating an inexpensive ($60) external hard drive enclosure that has the much recommended Oxford 911 chipset for Firewire connection.

Is that chipset necessary in order to simply work properly with the iMac G5, or is it only necessary if you want to boot from the external drive?

I am going to use the drive just for video and audio editing. Would the drive need the Oxford 911 chipset for these functions to perform properly?

(I already have an external drive with that chipset for back-up and bootibility.)

Thanks for any help.

Doc

Posted on Aug 19, 2005 7:57 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 20, 2005 2:21 PM in response to Doc Spider

The Oxford 911 is a good work horse chipset for Firewire 400, and it is one I use and recommend for Firewire 400 enclosures. However it is not the only chipset available, there are even other Oxford models that would work fine for you.

The Oxford 924 supports both Firewire 400 and USB, and is commonly found in many external cases that have both Firewire 400 and USB interfaces. The Oxford 912 is a Firewire 800/USB 2 interface chipset and is also commonly in use.

My own preferences is for the 911 and 912 chipsets.

Here in the States, inexpensive external enclosures are readily available with these chipsets. So I guess you will need to do more research to find a source in Canada.

Tom N.

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Answer 2

Doc Spider Author

Level 2

396 points

Aug 20, 2005 2:27 PM in response to Tom Nelson1

Thanks for the info, Tom.

Here, it seems that the common FW/USB chipset is the Prolific brand.

Do you know if they work with the iMac G5 for scratch disk purposes only?

Doc

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