USB + Firewire External Case (Enclosure) for 3.5" Hard Drive $69 from CompGeeks

[ETan]

Enclosure at Comp Geeks

This seems like a really good deal to me, however no money now. Those cheap hard drives you got recently can now be a huge portable drive!

Hope this is hot enough. I did a search and didn't find this posted so I thought I'd share.


<Edit: Added more info>

Mass Storage!!! With three Firewire (IEEE1394) ports and one USB port this 3.5" light and handy external enclosure gives you a multi interface choice!


Features/Specifications
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firewire and USB Combo 3.5" HDD enclosure
Silver
Fully compatible with USB1.1 and IEEE 1394a standard
Three (3) Firewire (IEEE 1394) ports (2 in back / 1 in front)
One (1) USB port (in back)
Plug and Play
Transfer rate : Firewire up to 400Mb/s , USB up to 12Mb/s
Cross platform between Windows and Mac OS
Bootable drive supportive for Macintosh system in Firewire connection
Automatic configuration without ID selction or terminator
Light and Handy for portable use
Oxford Semi OXFW911-TQ-A / RealTek RTL8801 Chipset
Includes One USB A-B cable , One Firewire IEEE 1394 dual 6-pin cable,
Power Adapter (+12V & +5V) , Driver (on CD), Power Cord

Product Requirements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firewire equipped Macintosh or PC's
USB equipped Macintosh or PC's
Windows 98SE/ME/2000
Mac OS 8.6 or higher

 

[fishlet]

Does that mean it support Firewire and USB? So it can be used with Windows NT?

 

[ashneel]

looks like a great Product but never heard of them who's the manfacturer?

we need some feedback people?

i might just buy the Kit and just keep the firewire Ports and egay the External Case and get a better ONe like ADS.

 

[DaRushin]

Windows 2K, XP, ME and maybe 98 have 1394 support. Windows 2K/XP/ME is built in and with 98 I think you need a patch.


Ben

 

[RDMustang1]

Anyone tried putting like a 4x cdrw in one of these things? I know it would fit but would it be hard getting 2K to recognize the burner?

 

[ddiccico]

<< Anyone tried putting like a 4x cdrw in one of these things? I know it would fit but would it be hard getting 2K to recognize the burner? >>

It will only fit 3.5" drives (even though the picture looks like it has a CD bezel on the front).

 

[coredog2]

Who really cares about the manufacturer? They've OEM'd the board from Oxford. Oxford's
911 FireWire chipset is probably the best FireWire->IDE interface around.

If anyone is interested, it should be extremely easy to pop out the bridge board (the expensive part)
and use it in a larger enclosure that can take a CD/DVD drive.

 

[MesBoogie]

Not too bad; however, if you want really high transfer rates you'll want to use a USB 2.0 device (if you don't have firewire). I just bought an enclosure (no hot deal but still a good product) that supports both USB 2.0 and Firewire. The drive in this thread is rated at 12Mb/s vice 480Mb/s for USB 2.0. That's megabits not megabytes.

-mb

 

[jimmystu]

I found a even Better and faster 3.5" all-in-one USB 2.0 enclosure for $88+6.53s/h. It is crazy fast!!! 480Mbps transfer rate. firewire is out of date now!!

here the link

 

[rugby]

I hardly think firewire's out of date. I guess all those DV cameras out there with firewire will miraculously sprout USB 2 ports? Firewire 2 is on it's way with 800mb/sec transfer rate. Show me any firewire or USB 2 device that maxes out the bandwidth for either port.

 

[ashneel]

how about ADS?

 

[DaveC]

if anyone gets this, let me know. I want to know if it's as good as the other external drives with firewire built in.

 

[pete777]

hi
where did you buy the usb2 and firewire case?

just bought one usb2 case from ADStech. cheap looking and feel.
80,00 at microcenter after 20% off

 

[777php]

<< Not too bad; however, if you want really high transfer rates you'll want to use a USB 2.0 device (if you don't have firewire). I just bought an enclosure (no hot deal but still a good product) that supports both USB 2.0 and Firewire. The drive in this thread is >>



Actually Firewire's transfer rate is 400Mb/s with USB 2.0 being slightly faster at 480Mb/s. The advantage of firewire is that DV cameras use firewire so it enables you to do video editing without any capture hardware. USB 2.0's advantage is that it is backwards compatible so you can use your old peripherals.

 

[valkyrie]

Damn, OOS.

 

[gggonzalez]

Firewire is a "smart" protocol compared to USB 1.0 or even 2.0. Other than slightly less speed (to be fixed in FireWire 2.0), FW is the better transfer method, and it is already YEARS old. Heck, they have plans to push it to 1600 Mbps.

 

[LivinLaVivaPollo]

Back in stock, just ordered one.

 

[DanielNTX]

Me too....ordered one.

 

[ShinSa]

<< I hardly think firewire's out of date. I guess all those DV cameras out there with firewire will miraculously sprout USB 2 ports? Firewire 2 is on it's way with 800mb/sec transfer rate. Show me any firewire or USB 2 device that maxes out the bandwidth for either port. >>



So what kind of hard drive would we be using to enable 100MB/sec transfer rate???
Note: your UDMA 100 western digital does not transfer data anywhere near that speed.

 

[LivinLaVivaPollo]

I think it may be 50MB/s for firewire, but that's all theoretical. If I did my math correctly, 400mbps=400000kbps, 400000kbps/8=50000KB/s, 50000KB/s*.001=50MB/s?

 

[Nefrodite]

i thought firewire had better controllers.. so stuff like copying from one firewire device to another won't bog down?

 

[Princeman]

Got one, Thanks!! They're usually OOS by the time I get there. This will need a firewire card, yes?
Got one put away from the CC deal from last summer just for this.

 

[leonowski]

The most important thing to note is not the maximum throughput of the 2 standards, but the throughput of the actual IDE bridge chipset. The Oxford 911 is a very mature chipset that is known to perform very well. Check these benchmarks out:

http://www.lowendmac.com/usb/oxford.html

http://www.fwdepot.com/911.html

USB 2.0 = 480 Megabits/sec = 60 Megabytes/sec

Firewire = 400 Megabits/sec = 50 Megabytes/sec

I don't think that any of the USB 2.0 bridge chipsets are as mature as the current firewire chipsets (being that it is very new). So, USB 2.0 isn't necessarily better than Firewire for external hard drives. Firewire isn't "dead". I can imagine a world where both can live together in harmony.

 

[hudster]

pardon my ignorance, but why are there 3 firewire ports (2 in back, 1 in front)? Can you hook this up to multiple firewire-enabled computers simultaneously? Or is it like a pass-thru/daisy-chain deal (the enclosure uses up one of your PC's firewire ports, but gives you 2 more to plug other firewire devices into) I'm just guessing here. I mean, I can understand having ONE port on the front and ONE port in the back just for convenience's sake, but i'm trying to understand the need for a total of 3 firewire ports.

-hudster

 

[ashneel]

BUMP FOR A HOT DEAL.

TO BAD I HAVE A SONY I.LINK FIREWIRE CASE THATS GOOD FOR NOW.

THIS LOOKS LIKE A GREAT DEAL COMES WITH THE FIREWIRE CARD I BOUGHT MINE FOR $50 BUCKS .

ANYONE TRIED THE MAXTOR FIREWIRE CARDS ANY PROBLEMS?

HAHAH I AM NOT ANGRY