Which external Firewire drive is best for my iMac?

Question

Level 1

9 points

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

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Answer 1

zwei

Level 2

271 points

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!

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Answer 2

Dec 21, 2006 10:31 AM in response to chrisasha

OWC (macsales.com) sale a number of firewire drives, any of which are good. You might want to wander over there and check out their selection.

Glor

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Answer 3

Dec 21, 2006 5:48 PM in response to chrisasha

I will second Glor's recommendation of OWC. Their drives use the Oxford 911 chipset which has proven to be a very stable and reliable chipset.

I would avoid drives that use the more common Prolific chipset. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not.

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Answer 4

cjsiv

Level 2

350 points

Dec 21, 2006 5:54 PM in response to Eric Kracinski

I have 3 western digital externals. All have been great.

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Answer 5

lenn5

Level 4

2,537 points

Dec 21, 2006 5:58 PM in response to Glorfindeal

I agree with Glor. OWC is great. I've gotten 2 drives from them. One a replacement for a PB and the other a portable firewire drive. Both use Seagate. Very fast and quiet.

lenn

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Answer 6

Dec 21, 2006 6:16 PM in response to chrisasha

I've heard very good things about the MyBook Pro, by WD. Can anyone else comment on that? I'm thinking about a 500GB drive from them.

It also would look nice with the white and blue lights (My Razer Pro mouse has a blue lit scroll wheel and sides).

Happy Holidays!

-Nick

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Answer 7

lenn5

Level 4

2,537 points

Dec 21, 2006 6:54 PM in response to nicklange19

I've never heard of it. The most important thing is who makes the drive mechinism and what chipset they use.

lenn

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Answer 8

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

The 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.

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Answer 9

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

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Answer 10

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

The 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.

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Answer 11

Dec 21, 2006 8:17 PM in response to Eric Kracinski

Does OWC use the Oxford chipsets? Where do you find that kind of specific information on the HD's? I'm really interested in the 640GB RAID setup OWC has.

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Answer 12

Dec 21, 2006 8:24 PM in response to nicklange19

They use Oxford on all of their 3.5" drives that I could see. I took a peek at the RAID drives and they do mention in the section on the right of the page "Key Features Include..." and they say that they use a "Custom Oxford 924 FireWire Bridge" for the USB/FW400/FW800 drives.

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Answer 13

Dec 21, 2006 8:34 PM in response to Eric Kracinski

Thanks Eric 🙂

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Answer 14

chrisasha Author

Level 1

9 points

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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Answer 15

Dec 22, 2006 8:35 AM in response to chrisasha

Worst case, OWC does ship internationally. I know that the Pleiades drives available in Europe do use the Oxford chipsets and that Rod Hagen (a Level 4 from Australia) uses their drives and recommends them.

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