Enclosure Chipsets?

[jtzou]

http://www.dealsonic.com/stpmalidetou.html
http://www.dealsonic.com/stpmsismbaco.html

Looking at the above enclosures.

As far as Firewire, Oxford 911 should be best? "Delayed Write Failure" stuff can be fixed with new drivers/firmware, right?

As far as USB 2.0, Cypress are best? I've seen Cypress, Prolific, and others. Which ones would be considered best? I think people lean towards Cypress the most. But referring to the links, the first says it uses AT2 Microchipset. One website said Cypress's new AT2 chipset, so does that mean its Cypress? Or is AT2 just a generic name for something?

FINALLY, Firewire performance surpasses USB 2.0 despite its higher max speed, right? If so, by how much? e.g. Is it worth paying almost double I guess to get Firewire functionality? And will USB 2.0 be slowed down by multiple devices that use USB (i.e. is the 480 Mbps shared amongst all devices)?

 

[LoudTIGER]

i hear cypress for usb and oxford 911 for fw400 and 922 for fw800. thats what i've read though, no one really replied to my other thread about enclosures.

 

[jtzou]

bump?

 

[tiap]

I have an enclosure with both usb2 and fw400. Can't remember what brand but it uses the oxford chips. Mine is a 5.25 size and has the internal power adapter.
Tested copying the same data (around 3 gig) with each wire and there was like only less than 1 minute of difference between the two. If you check you will see that the ratings of each are not real world. Having both comes in handy for using multiple computers.
For only forty bucks buy one and have fun

 

[Goosemaster]

Don;t bother with the 922 FW800 it runs like crap using windows.

 

[Tangman]

Can someone shed some light on which PCI cards are ideal to use with Windows machines?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

I'd be interested in knowing as well. One of the benefits I've heard of 1394>USB2 is the much lower CPU usage. Less than 1% vs up to 15% (on a midrange P4) - truth to that?

- M4H

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
I'd be interested in knowing as well. One of the benefits I've heard of 1394>USB2 is the much lower CPU usage. Less than 1% vs up to 15% (on a midrange P4) - truth to that?

- M4H

Yes, because the firewire controller handles everything in hardware while USB2 relies on the CPU.

Also, I have noticed transfer rates around 19MB/s with USB2 and almost 40MB/s with firewire.

Needless to say, I use firewire