HOT! From Oct.13 CompUSA External 40G HD USB2.0/Fireware for $49.99

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: Tot
I was wondering that since it is not bus powered, does the firewire case accept a 4 pin or 6 pin firewire port. Reason I ask is because of the 900Z compaq laptop that I bought. I believe it comes with a 4 pin firewire port. Seen it in compusa and bb.

As I've already stated in a previous post. The Firewire drive comes with both size cables (4 pin and 6 pin). The case has a 6 pin connector but it comes with a 6<-->6 and a 6<-->4 cable



IMHawaii,

What did you do about the bezel when you put in the CDRW drive? Did you just remove it or did you cut it creatively?

 

[Tot]

Thanks alot Jason.

I should have read more carefully. I am off to pick one up. Woohoo time to put my 120JB in it. Unlimited space.

 

[rdh]

Originally posted by: jrw558
The usb Drive is a Western Digital WD400EB. Mine has a manufacturer's date Sept 20th 2002. I just needed a small drive and the price seemed ok. I plan to stick something else inside the box in the future.

The drive in the firewire version is an IBM Deskstar 120 GXP (IC35L040AVVN07)





storagereview.com's Review

 

[LordSnailz]

Anyone get the USB drive work on the ECS k7s5a motherboad? Plugged it in the usb port and it won't let me access the drive. winxp also.

 

[uwannawhat]

Make sure your USB ports are enabled in your BIOS. Does the port work with other devices?

 

[ponch007]

My Firewire had a Jupiter drive -- WTF -- whats a Jupiter drive?!?

 

[somethingwitty]

sold out online. guess I'll try calling, since I can't make it to a B&M. if that doesnt work, anyone want to buy one for me and ship it. we could work something out regarding rebates, etc. PM please. thanks

 

[rdh]

Originally posted by: ponch007
My Firewire had a Jupiter drive -- WTF -- whats a Jupiter drive?!?

Interesting. I did not actually LOOK to see what was in there, just looked at what Sisandra and "Sytstem Hardware" reported for the drive. It turns out that Jupiter is an Excelstor Jupiter Io40GB ..... a low-cost IBM partner?


from the article: " The IDE-drive offers a capacity of 40 GB and is constructed in the same way as the 40 GB-version of the new IBM Deskstar 120GXP. Like its big IBM counterpart, the Jupiter Io40GB has the lowest acoustics, lowest power-consumption and highest shock protection benefits in its class. It is designed to support desktop and multimedia applications that require high performance at an affordable price"

The question is, will the drive identify itself with the same version/model as an IBM 120GXP? I wont know until I crack the case....

 

[uwannawhat]

rdh very good info.

Thanks for posting it!

 

[LordSnailz]

Make sure your USB ports are enabled in your BIOS. Does the port work with other devices?

The USB ports are enabled, my keyboard is connected to the USB port and it's working.

 

[The Saint]

Maybe someone can help me with this.....

I picked up one of the USB ones, and I'm using it on USB 1 mode under WinME on my P2 366, and it's unbelievably slow. Not just slow, which I was expecting, but 3+ minutes for a 150 meg file and with some parts of that my computer so bogged down that the clock doesn't even advance anymore! Specifically, the file transfer indicator zips through quickly, but then it gets to the very last bar, and then it hangs there forever. Running scandisk on it, it took me 2 hours for just 100k clusters out of 1+ million!

This isn't normal is it? Anyone have any idea what my problem could be? I don't even have any other USB peripherals attached!

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: The Saint
Maybe someone can help me with this.....

I picked up one of the USB ones, and I'm using it on USB 1 mode under WinME on my P2 366, and it's unbelievably slow. Now just slow, which I was expecting, but 3+ minutes for a 150 meg file and with some parts of that my computer so bogged down that the clock doesn't even advance anymore! Specifically, the file transfer indicator zips through quickly, but then it gets to the very last bar, and then it hangs there forever. Running scandisk on it, it took me 2 hours for just 100k clusters out of 1+ million!

This isn't normal is it? Anyone have any idea what my problem could be? I don't even have any other USB peripherals attached!

woah, hey mtl. Now that you're stateside again, had to go HDing again huh?

I have a similar problem with my USB CF reader, i never really figured out why it's so slow.

 

[wasssup]

called up my local compusa last night (edison, nj) and they said they had 20 in stock...of course, when I go there they say they've been sold out for days. god i love "smart" retail employees...

oh well, that's what i get for dealing with exams

 

[Doraemon]

I got a firewire yesterday, but I want to make sure that I got the right one.

Does the box of the firewire looks like the USB one except it's red instead of purple? And the picture of the drive is also similar to the one on USB (green-ish with white bezel, "Mac looking") except with firewire symbol on it? The drive on the box looks different than the picture CUSA posted for the firewire, looks more like the USB?

The reason is that I went to other CUSA and over heard a CS talking to other customer saying that the firewire box should look like the firewire/USB 2.0 combo (Black and sliver casing) one.

Thanks.

 

[SilentRunning]

Well I just picked up a firewire version today and the enclosure does look like the enclosure for the usb version. If you want to make sure you have the right one just check the sku#. It is located just above the UPC and it should be #296329 for the firewire version (it is printed on the rebate form too).

 

[rdh]

Originally posted by: LordSnailz
Anyone get the USB drive work on the ECS k7s5a motherboad? Plugged it in the usb port and it won't let me access the drive. winxp also.

Mine is on an ECS K7S5A and works fine. In Windows 98SE, you have to go into the device (in Device Manager) and set it to removavle.

As for Performance....


SiSandra gives the firewire drive (via an Audigy sound card) 21940kb/s (standard ide is 24000) . In reality, it took 38 seconds to transfer a 622MB file (16.36MB/S)


SiSandra gives the USB drive (USB 1.1 on K7S5A) , 967 kb/s, and it took 6.5 minuts to transfer 311MB

 

[The Saint]

Ok, so I bought one of the firewire ones. I plugged it into the 4pin IEEE1394 on my Vaio Z505R laptop running WinME, and it doesn't work. Under Device Manager there is a new icon labeled IEEE1394 Disk in the Storage device category, and it has an exclamation point on it. When I double click on that, the Device status is just the standard error message of
"This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed. (Code 10)

Try upgrading the device drivers for this device."

I haven't heard anyone else mention this problem with their firewire hard drive. Anyone have any idea what's going on? The manual seemed to think on WinME it should just plug and play.

Edit: another category called SBP2 also appears, with the device SBP2 Compliant IEEE 1394 device inside of it. That device works fine. Both of these categories only appear when the firewire drive is plugged in. If I disable the SBP2 device, the IEEE1394 Disk device disappears too.

Edit2: AWWWWWW CR@P!!!! I haven't found anywhere that directly addresses using this drive on a Vaio, but this FAQ entry for a LaCie Firewire brand hard drive is not making me happy at all:

S200 IEEE1394 port? S400 IEEE1394? Nobody ever mentioned any damn incompatabilities between different standards of Firewire to me!!

According to this Reference sheet on IEEE1394 here there are in fact 3 standards for IEEE1394, S100, S200, S400 where the number indicates how many Mbps they can handle. No mention is made of the fact that some devices require a certain SXXX, but from the LaCie Firewire hard drive FAQ, at least one does, and I bet that's my problem here too! Did anyone here know about this? Different standards of firewire?! I had no damn clue, this is a total shock to me. So it looks like I'm up the proverbial creek, and unless I'm proven wrong on this, all VAIO owners, double check what SXXX your model of Vaio comes with so you don't get screwed by this problem too. And to add insult to injury, CompUSA charges restock....friggin' A, this just ain't my day..

 

[rdh]

I haven't heard anyone else mention this problem with their firewire hard drive. Anyone have any idea what's going on? The manual seemed to think on WinME it should just plug and play.

.[/b]

I'll repeat what I wrote earlier.... both the USB and Firewire instructions state that you must go into the disk device in device manager and set it to "removable" for Win9x/ME. Neither the USB nor Firewire device would work on my system until I had done this and rebooted.

 

[Tot]

Originally posted by: The Saint
Ok, so I bought one of the firewire ones. I plugged it into the 4pin IEEE1394 on my Vaio Z505R laptop running WinME, and it doesn't work. Under Device Manager there is a new icon labeled IEEE1394 Disk in the Storage device category, and it has an exclamation point on it. When I double click on that, the Device status is just the standard error message of
"This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed. (Code 10)

Try upgrading the device drivers for this device."

I haven't heard anyone else mention this problem with their firewire hard drive. Anyone have any idea what's going on? The manual seemed to think on WinME it should just plug and play.

Edit: another category called SBP2 also appears, with the device SBP2 Compliant IEEE 1394 device inside of it. That device works fine. Both of these categories only appear when the firewire drive is plugged in. If I disable the SBP2 device, the IEEE1394 Disk device disappears too.

Edit2: AWWWWWW CR@P!!!! I haven't found anywhere that directly addresses using this drive on a Vaio, but this FAQ entry for a LaCie Firewire brand hard drive is not making me happy at all:

S200 IEEE1394 port? S400 IEEE1394? Nobody ever mentioned any damn incompatabilities between different standards of Firewire to me!!

According to this Reference sheet on IEEE1394 here there are in fact 3 standards for IEEE1394, S100, S200, S400 where the number indicates how many Mbps they can handle. No mention is made of the fact that some devices require a certain SXXX, but from the LaCie Firewire hard drive FAQ, at least one does, and I bet that's my problem here too! Did anyone here know about this? Different standards of firewire?! I had no damn clue, this is a total shock to me. So it looks like I'm up the proverbial creek, and unless I'm proven wrong on this, all VAIO owners, double check what SXXX your model of Vaio comes with so you don't get screwed by this problem too. And to add insult to injury, CompUSA charges restock....friggin' A, this just ain't my day..

Did you buy the vaio from the compusa too?

Anyway bring it in and tell them that its becoz of compatibility issues that you are returning. Talk with the manager tell him that you bought it becoz it says firewire, and you had asked someone in store that will it work with any firewire port and they said YES.
In anycase, if you are returning becoz the product is defective dont worry about charges


Good luck

 

[The Saint]

I'll repeat what I wrote earlier.... both the USB and Firewire instructions state that you must go into the disk device in device manager and set it to "removable" for Win9x/ME. Neither the USB nor Firewire device would work on my system until I had done this and rebooted.

That's not the issue for my case. I know what you're talking about, since the USB hard drive was like that when I installed it, but the firewire hard drive just has an exclamation point next to it and doesn't work. No hard drive options inside of it, just that driver problems message.

Did you buy the vaio from the compusa too?

Anyway bring it in and tell them that its becoz of compatibility issues that you are returning. Talk with the manager tell him that you bought it becoz it says firewire, and you had asked someone in store that will it work with any firewire port and they said YES.
In anycase, if you are returning becoz the product is defective dont worry about charges

No, I've had the Vaio for a longtime.

Yeah, hopefully I can get away with a reasonable manager and no restocking fee, but I really had been hoping to use this thing, pretty disappointing. I mean, who's ever heard of this firewire version issues before?.....

 

[rootaxs]

I'm sorry to hear about your prob The Saint, unfortunately Sony's implementation of the Firewire standard isn't exactly "standard" so you'll have some problems with using your average Firewire peripheral with it.

 

[beatniks3]

sux to hear 'the saint' about your sony....i have a sony r505tl superslim and mine has a S400 ilink port....does this mean i am in the clear?

I went to compusa in madison two days ago and they were sold out of the firewire drives but they let me prepay for one that supposedly is coming in on a shipment...i guess we'll see if i ever see this drive...

I am running out of toys that i can plug into this thing...(wireless connection, three-pound laptop on my lap, no wires (as i surf), what a life!)

 

[Cryo]

doh I got one of these Jupiter drives too :| (firewire version)

the speed seems ok just a little slower than my other drives.

150mb divx file copied in under 10 seconds

pretty good for the price, anyone got any idea how to cut the bezel to put in a cdrw?

 

[auto]

The Saint, maybe I could just buy the firewire drive from you.. I can't find any in stock here. PM if interested.

 

[ponch007]

doh I got one of these Jupiter drives too (firewire version)

I tried a Western digital 5400 rpm and a Jupiter 7200rpm drive in the USB enclosure running at 2.0 and the Western digital drive was faster.