Hot or Not? 3.5-inch 2.0 USB & Firewire Combo External Case - $38.50

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bryantp

Senior member
Jan 5, 2004
230
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From the site Brand New Retail Boxed
Mass Storage!!! With two Firewire (IEEE1394) ports and one 2.0 USB port this 3.5" light and handy external enclosure gives you a multi interface choice - Just add IDE hard drive!!

Click Here

Perhaps a coupon is out there as well?
 
RossMAN

RossMAN

Grand Nagus
Feb 24, 2000
78,867
367
136
What IDE hard drive do you guys recommend?

I want this solely for back up purposes.
 
C

croak

Senior member
Oct 12, 1999
493
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0
weak, i just got one from directron that isnt as nice for $47. oh well, maybe i need this one too.
 
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croak

Senior member
Oct 12, 1999
493
0
0
Ok, now I don't feel as bad as this has a power brick and the one I got didn't :)

Funny, it looks just like the Acomdata one from Maxtor without the brick.
 
W

weepul

Diamond Member
Nov 5, 2000
5,134
0
0
www.hd-trailers.net
Originally posted by: croak
weak, i just got one from directron that isnt as nice for $47. oh well, maybe i need this one too.
Click to expand...

$47 vs $38.50...? how is that weak?

i got mine about 1.5yrs ago, different brand for $60shipped. still believe it's worth every penny.

//krunk (^_^x)
 
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lunchm3at

Platinum Member
Nov 13, 2001
2,235
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This deal is for a Firewire/USB2 case... u guys are linking weak ass USB2 only cases...
 
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metalmania

Platinum Member
May 7, 2002
2,039
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Here is my experience with this enclosure:

I bought a lot of things from Compgeeks. I am happy with them. But this enclosure is the only thing I retured. I bought it two years ago when it's $57 or something. It's small, looked OK. After several days, my HD in it would lose connection with my PC when I copid big files. I was using 1394 mode. Didn't know the USB2.0 part. Anyway I took out the HD and put it into a ADS enclosure (OX911 chipset), no more problems, put it into a 5.25" enclosure (OX911 chipset), no more problems. I checked the power adaptor, it's 12V/1.8A, the other 5.25" cases are 12V/2.0A. I checked the hard disk power specification, forgot the number now but I thought the power adapter couldn't provide enought juice when the hard disk spined up.
So I returned it and replaced with a 5.25" enclosure. The story didn't end yet. My Maxtor hard disk that I placed in that small enclosure made a sudden death only after a few days. Maxtor sent me a new hard disk, but I thought the death was due to the bad power of that enclosure.

Anyway from that time I would only buy 5.25" enclousr WITHOUT power brick, and make sure at least the 12V/2.0A limit. So far so good.

Just my 2 cents.
 
O

Overzeetop

Member
Feb 23, 2001
88
0
0
No coupon for this drive - it's a geek special. I considered it a while ago, but just didn't like the aesthetics. Of course, for $38.xx it's the cheapest FW/USB2 3.5" box I've seen.

Now, the Metal Gear Box...that's a pretty drive case. I've got the USB2.0 model, and it's great. One thing to note is that the external power supply has a mini-din style connector and a laptop-like power adapter. I suspect the powerbrick can probably power 2-3 drives, if you had a Y cable with all pins through (5V@2A + 12V@1.25A). Currently mine doesn't play nice with the FW/USB PC Card in my laptop, but I think that's the fault of the interface card, as it works just fine over the built in USB 1.1 port, albeit at a snails pace, and is rock solid with my desktop USB2.

The metal gear boxes are small - 8.75 long (standard) x 4.75 wide (nice) x 1.2" thick (wow). Actually, they're officially 1.5" thick, but the screws at the four corners stick out .15" each. My point is that it looks much smaller than the 1.5" it's listed at. I just wish I knew whether it had one or two FW ports (for daisy chaining). And, damnit, it's just the best looking drive case I've seen. Period.

Metal Gear boxes:

FireWire + USB2 for $56.99-10%=$51.29
USB2.0 Only for $39.99 - 10% = $35.99

The 10% off is via coupon codes widely available, such as at chubby billfold. In fact, I believe if you strip off www. and .com from the cubby billfold website address, you'll have the right code to enter ;-)

 
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cmbehan

Senior member
Apr 18, 2001
276
0
0
My experience with this enclosure....


I bought it for almost the same price 18 months ago, and have never had a problem. I use it for portable backup on multiple machines, so USB and Firewire were a necessity.

Transfer speeds are very good with this drive...almost internal speeds....in fact, I've got a 7200 RPM drive in the enclosure right now, and I can very much tell that it's faster than my laptop HD.

The small fan in the unit moves at about 1,000,000 miles per hour and is quite loud. That's my only knock against the unit, and has left me turning it off when not in immediate use.



Overall, I highly recommend if you need something like this....and any IDE drive will work, but save yourself some money and potential heat headaches and pick a big 5200 RPM drive.
 
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GetSome681

Senior member
Oct 4, 2002
242
0
0
If you pick up this external case or any other one, I'd seriously recommend using the Firewire connection and not USB2. You'll find many reviews (myself included) that have gotten higher transfer speeds with Firewire. It's definitely worth it, and it won't chew up your cpu when accessing the disc ala usb2.
 
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cmbehan

Senior member
Apr 18, 2001
276
0
0
Originally posted by: GetSome681
If you pick up this external case or any other one, I'd seriously recommend using the Firewire connection and not USB2. You'll find many reviews (myself included) that have gotten higher transfer speeds with Firewire. It's definitely worth it, and it won't chew up your cpu when accessing the disc ala usb2.
Click to expand...

You'll almost always get higher speeds with Firewire vs. USB2 simply because Firewire is hardware controlled.
 
G

gba

Senior member
Apr 1, 2002
833
0
71
Originally posted by: metalmania
Here is my experience with this enclosure:

I bought a lot of things from Compgeeks. I am happy with them. But this enclosure is the only thing I retured. I bought it two years ago when it's $57 or something. It's small, looked OK. After several days, my HD in it would lose connection with my PC when I copid big files. I was using 1394 mode. Didn't know the USB2.0 part. Anyway I took out the HD and put it into a ADS enclosure (OX911 chipset), no more problems, put it into a 5.25" enclosure (OX911 chipset), no more problems. I checked the power adaptor, it's 12V/1.8A, the other 5.25" cases are 12V/2.0A. I checked the hard disk power specification, forgot the number now but I thought the power adapter couldn't provide enought juice when the hard disk spined up.
So I returned it and replaced with a 5.25" enclosure. The story didn't end yet. My Maxtor hard disk that I placed in that small enclosure made a sudden death only after a few days. Maxtor sent me a new hard disk, but I thought the death was due to the bad power of that enclosure.

Anyway from that time I would only buy 5.25" enclousr WITHOUT power brick, and make sure at least the 12V/2.0A limit. So far so good.

Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...

My buddy and I both got this enclodure over a year ago. Not only would HD in it lose connection with PC when copying big files in 1394 mode, we couldn't get them to work at all in USB 2.0 mode. We both gave up on the thing and went with 1394 enclosures utilizing Oxford chipset.
 
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