Which external Firewire drive is best for my iMac?

I have two external USB drives and am still running out of HD space (create lots of video files and they eat hard drive space!).
I have a spare firewire port on my iMac so I figured I should get myself an external firewire drive.
Trouble is, which one do I get? (I was thinking I would want around maybe 500 Gig in size?)
Looking around this forum I see some people have come unstuck with external firewire drives...
So then, which one do you think I should buy and how do I find out which would be most compatible with my iMac? Any brand favourites or any suggestions???

Cheers,
Chris

Intel chip iMac 17 inch, 2 Gig RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.8), Early 2006 iMac

Posted on Dec 21, 2006 10:09 AM

Reply
19 replies

Dec 21, 2006 10:20 AM in response to chrisasha

Practically any External FireWire Hard Drive will work with your Mac. I would advise against getting a Lacie D2 of any sort ..I have never seen so many drives die as I have those.

If your other drives have firewire ports on them you may consider hooking them up via FireWire instead of USB because it's faster.

Good luck!

Dec 21, 2006 7:14 PM in response to nicklange19

User uploaded fileThe MyBooks are Western Digital drives of course, so the reliability of the HD itself is going to be fine. They have USB and FW, so you have the option of which interface to use.

My only problem with the My Books is that they do not specify which chipset they use for the FW. I really would hesitate to buy a Prolific chipset as they are just not as reliable as the Oxford ones.

Dec 21, 2006 7:40 PM in response to Eric Kracinski

So which are the best chipsets for Mac's?

The Mercury Elite Pro from OWC, says it has the best chipsets on the market. How do they compare?

What about the 500GB OWC Mercury Elite? Is this two 250GB drives? I don't know to much about RAID.. When you transfer something, half goes to each drive, is that correct? Do I need to configure anything for the RAID to operate correctly out of box, or is it "plug and play" like normal HDD's?


Thanks for your help..



-Nick

Dec 21, 2006 8:14 PM in response to nicklange19

User uploaded fileThe best chipsets - Mac or PC - use the Oxford chips.

OWC has a 500GB drive that is a single drive, as well as a single 750GB drive. Those are the largest currently available.

I really wouldn't bother with RAID unless you want to eek out every last bit of performance out of a drive array. I do not do RAID - either the striping or the mirroring - since I have a single drive enclosure and use my OWC drive to clone my internal HD to with SuperDuper.

Dec 22, 2006 2:37 AM in response to chrisasha

OK, so the advice is to go for a drive with an Oxford chip and avoid Lacie. Is that right?

I am specifically interested in a 500 Gig external firewire drive. Can anyone suggest specifiic make and model numbers that include this all-important Oxford chip?

Also, I am in the UK so an American company that sell to US customers isn't really a help to me. Anyone know a UK based company who I could trust?

Thanks for all the help, guys!

Chris

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Which external Firewire drive is best for my iMac?

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