USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosures (I'm new to them)

[edro]

I was wondering how those USB 2.0 HDD enclosures work.
If someone could answer a few questions for me, I would greatly appreciate it.

1. How fast are they compared to hooking them up via IDE? (I am going to be using a 60GB 7200rpm Maxtor drive in it)
2. Can you boot from it?
3. How fast is the data transfer VS IDE?
4. Does it just show up in WinXP like a removeable disk drive?
5. What is the best brand? Or will most of them work all the same?
6. Does it pull all its power from the USB cable?


Any other suggestions would be great!

Thanks!

 

[edro]

Well, I just found out that they use external power. I also see that they transfer 60mb/sec. What is thet compared to IDE? Isn't IDE ATA66 66 BITs per second? So that would make it faster? How could that be?

 

[edro]

Also.... I could use Firewire too.... Would USB 2.0 or Firewire be better? I know that Firewire is 10mb/sec slower than USB 2.0 though.

 

[DrVos]

Hody endro13,

I'll try my best to answer your questions:

1. Can't really say, but using a usb2 or firewire drive should feel pretty transparent-- no huge difference in speed.
2. Kind of. Your bios has to have built in support for it though
3. Same as #1
4. Yup. Firewire and USB drive are recognized by windows as disk drives
5. Brand doesnt matter as much as the chipset being used. Cant't say anythng for sure on usbb 2.0, but firewire drives using the oxford 911 controller offer better performance.
6. I believe that all external drives need external power
7. Regarding, usb2.0 vs. firewire. While USB 2.0 does have a higher theoretical transfer rate, Firewire is faster overall. I've used both USB 2.0 and firewire drives and I prefer my firewire ones. I believe part of the reason lies in the fact that firewire drives use controllers that handle the data transfer and offloads the the duty from the cpu <--- I may be talking out of my ass on this one.

I like how my firewire drives dont prompt that remobable hardware thingy in the taskbar, it seems to handle being plugged and unplugged better in my completely subjective opinion.

In the end, if you have a usb 2.0 port already, save yourself some money and get a usb 2.0 enclosure. If speed matters more to you, go and invest in the firewire set-up. I am very pleased with mine.

 

[edro]

Actually, I have one of those Shuttle XPC cube machines. It has USB 2.0 and Firewire both on board.

 

[DrVos]

Ah, cool.

In that case, I say to go and spring for one of those firewire enclosures.

I was kinda thinking, I know that ATA100 and ATA133 have theoretical max burst rates 100MB/s and 133MB/s this of course blows firewire's max of 50MB/s out of the water. I wouldnt load a OS or programs on a firewire drive, but it is GREAT for media storage (mp3's movies, my documents, etc).

 

[ugh]

Just read something similar here.

DrVos: Actually you're kinda incorrect in point 6. The smaller hard disk enclosures for notebook hard disks do not require external power supplies. It draws power from either the USB of FireWire interface. Unfortunately, you'll have to bear the cost of the notebook hard disk. Other than that, it's REALLY convenient

 

[edro]

Originally posted by: DrVos
Ah, cool.

In that case, I say to go and spring for one of those firewire enclosures.

I was kinda thinking, I know that ATA100 and ATA133 have theoretical max burst rates 100MB/s and 133MB/s this of course blows firewire's max of 50MB/s out of the water. I wouldnt load a OS or programs on a firewire drive, but it is GREAT for media storage (mp3's movies, my documents, etc).

Yeah, my main drive will be IDE ATA100, but this is my backup drive and MP3's and movies and stuffs.

 

[edro]

Originally posted by: ugh
Just read something similar here.

DrVos: Actually you're kinda incorrect in point 6. The smaller hard disk enclosures for notebook hard disks do not require external power supplies. It draws power from either the USB of FireWire interface. Unfortunately, you'll have to bear the cost of the notebook hard disk. Other than that, it's REALLY convenient

That's badass looking! Too bad it's $115! :Q

 

[ugh]

I wanted to get one of those enclosures myself before I saw the price I'm sure you'll be able to find some other alternatives to this one which is cheaper.