USB/Firewire Enclosure?

rbz

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Aug 27, 2002
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I found out about USB/Firewire enclosures sold on the web for making internal HDD (or CD, DVD drives) external. How do they (with similar HDD) fare with external HDDs that were reviewed ("Mobile Data Storage: Comparison of Three External Storage Systems Between 120 GB and 160 GB", August 27)?
It is cheaper to buy USB/Firewire enclosure and internal HDD separately (120GB IBM drive + USB enclosure cost about $190).
 

verteronar

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Aug 27, 2002
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I have a laptop drive ext enclosure. I'm sure the performance isn't quite there with these drives, but the price sure was. They can be had for $70 or so. Mine is a WillPoD Tzar 2000+, a combo USB2/Firewire enclosure to which I added an IBM 32 GB 5400RPM 9.5 mm drive. I wish I could find this online though. I got it at a computer show in LA. There are several though that are either USB2 OR Firewire. So total price was about $200, and I use the firewire option due to less CPU overhead.

Nar
 

rbz

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Aug 27, 2002
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I found the online stores using Google (enter "USB Enclosure" or "Firewire Enclosure").
I actually would like to see how it performs considering USB2/Firewire transfer rate is higher than IDE HDD.
Maybe this can be discussed in a follow-up article as an alternative of mobile storage solutions from Maxtor or WD.
Btw, I like the USB2 better because of its compatibility with USB 1.1 which is widely used now.
 

Ncogneto

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Dec 31, 2007
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I purchased a older external 2 bay scsi cdrom case for 4.99 from ebay. to this I added a fibre channel 10k 36.7 gig drive I paid $65.00 for (st336605fc)and a qlogic 2100 controller...$50.00 bucks. Tcard and cables another $50.00. A bit on tyhe pricey side per gigabyte but the performance uttelry blows them usb/firewire externals away. My transfers are at 50,000 kb/s, and unlike the others this is great for running apps off of. If I wish to add more space, no problem I can just add another drive. Not for everyone mind you, but if you need to run apps of the external it rocks.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!