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5.25-inch USB & Firewire Combo External Case (69.00) from CompGeeks! MC Exclusives?

L

LivinLaVivaPollo

Senior member
They just got the 5.25 version of this firewire enclosure in, as the 3.5 inch version was pretty popular. Unlike the 3.5 inch though, this version is not a geek special, so you might be able to apply the MC Exclusive code.
 
Sweet deal with the coupon thanks!

I ordered right after you posted and I received it yesterday. It can accomodate a 3.5 hard drive or 5.25 CD/DVD/CDRW/DVD-R/Blahblah.

The problem is that there is no front bezel for it. If you add a 3.5 hard drive, the front will be exposed.

Fortunately, I had the ADS Pyro enclosure and the bezel fit perfectly for it. I was running a hard drive in the ADS, but I put it in the new one since it uses the Oxford 911 chip. I then used the bezel on the new one. The old ADS now houses my 12x burner. W00t!

 
i just paid $115 (with overnight shipping, $100 without) for the pyro firewire case...this is a good deal at $70 - 10% off (especially if you have an ultra expensive dvd-r drive that you don't want running 24/7 😉)
 
I just returned a $69 enclosure i got from the other Compgeek deal. USB worked but no way the firewire was gonna work with my working Actiontec Firewire card. The cd that came with it had only a USB driver... YMMV
 
Has anyone used the 3.5-inch drive with firewire? Would WinXP be able to automatically detect and install drivers for these drives?
 
Here's a question:

Can I buy this external case (or one like it) and use ANY CD-R/W drive? I'd be using the USB connection, so I know it'd be slow, but can I put a 12x CD-R/W in the case and use it? I figure I'd be limited to 6x or 4x for burning, which is fine by me as I'd be using it with an older laptop that has only USB 1.0 anyway.

If this would work, it's a pretty hot deal for people looking for external CD-R/W drives, IMHO.
 
Probably not the right place to ask... but does anybody make anything like this for a hard drive?


NM.........I gues this would be it:

3.5 Enclosure

This would be cool for me to stick an old 8GB drive in to back stuff up to.
 
These aren't really portable are they? You have to plug them into a wall outlet for it to work? It would be cool if it got power through the USB cable. Do normal firewire or USB 2.0 CD-RW's require you to plug them into an outlet, or do they get power through the USB/Firewire connection?
 


<< These aren't really portable are they? You have to plug them into a wall outlet for it to work? It would be cool if it got power through the USB cable. Do normal firewire or USB 2.0 CD-RW's require you to plug them into an outlet, or do they get power through the USB/Firewire connection? >>



Normal firweire takes ecternal power (at least my friends Firwire burner and Hard drive did that he bought last month)
 
U2ForNow,

I just got a USB 2.0 5.25" enclosure from Overstock for $59.00 (after $20.00 coupon)
I installed my 1 year old, never used TDK VeloCD 12x 10x 32x CDRW and it worked great.
No complaints here!
 
Yes, Windows XP does not need any extra drivers to install anything. 2000 doesn't need drivers either. You can put a 3.5 hard drive in this enlclosure, but there is no front bezel. They do have a 3.5 enclosure for your needs. You can put any CD/CDRW/CDR/DVD/DVD burner/ whatever....as long as its IDE and set to master. In fact, for you modders out there, you can detach the ide cable inside and use a ide cable with dual ports. Then you have an enclosure that supports 2 IDE devices. You can take out the little firewire bridge and use your dremel to cut a hole inside of a SCSI case for example that has 2 bays.

Yes you can put a CDRW there and just use the USB bus. This will limit your burning speed however.

Most firewire enclosures require an external power source, such is the case with all the enclosures at Compgeeks. Some enclosures out there are powered by the firewire BUS, but those are usually 2.5 laptop hard drives (they use less power). This also applies to USB enclosures. There are some hybrid USB2.0/Firewire enclosures out there too.
 


<<
Yes you can put a CDRW there and just use the USB bus. This will limit your burning speed however.
 >>



The max rated speed you can use a CDR or CDRW with these is 4x when using USB.
In reality you will be lucky if you get 2x out it, due too the standard USB port limitations.
This is the main reason we now have USB 2.0 and firewire.
 
One thing I am not very clear on:

Is it possible to mod it to take two hard drives at the same time....I really don't care how it looks....or does each device have to be set to master? Is it 3 seperate firewire channels?

Maybe it is just a matter of putting both hard drives in there (one inside, one on top) and then just using two firewire cables and just plugging in one at a time. That would not be so bad as long as I did not have to rip apart the unit just to switch hard drives...

But for me it would be so cool to have two devices going at the same time (maybe even a cd-rw and a hard drive). Is it possible?
 


<< Is this a good deal? Are people buying these?

^^^
😀 >>



This seems to be the cheapest I've been able to find. Even on eBay, they are almost this price. I really need a FireWire enclosure, I just wish I could find it a bit cheaper somewhere else. Possibly w/ a coupon code or something....
 
I just got the 3.5" firewire enclosure yesterday. I'm still waiting for the 40 GB drive I ordered from newegg so I through a 15.3 GB WD drive I had laying around, plugged it in to my audigy 's firewire port and it works great.
 
Here is my report...

I got the 5.25" USB1.1 + Firewire enclosure ($69.99), also got some of the 5.25" removable hard drive enclosures (for 3.5" drives, $7.50). I also got one of the IBM Cardbus firewire cards ($26).

The good news:

-- The $7.50 removable ATA100 hard drive enclosures that geeks sells DO FIT in the external firewire enclosure! Tight, but good.
-- The firewire card from IBM was plug and play, built in drivers for both my Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems. Texas Instruments chipset.
-- The firewire mode of the drive enclosure itself worked fine with my IBM card, nothing special - plug and play.

The bad news:

-- The USB mode of the enclosure required the driver CD-ROM with both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Not well suited to using to hookup to any old system.... I could not find the driver anywhere on the net, the only place it exists is on the CD-ROM that came with the system. GOOD NEWS: The driver worked with both Windows 2000 and Windows XP (just use the Windows 2000 one on XP, there was no specific one for XP).

 
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