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Hard Drive External Enclosures

post #1 of 15
6/7/05 at 12:56am
Thread Starter 
I am planning to buy an external enclosure for a mobile hard drive. I have a few questions.


1. How much faster is firewire over usb2? I've seen some graphs and numbers that show them being close to 2x the speed of usb2. Is that accurate? Will the extra price be justified?

2. Are there any recommendations for external enclosures? If not, I'm goin for the cheapest deal.

3. Do the small firewire ports on laptops support the full speed? I think they just cut out the power pins but not too sure.

Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 15
6/7/05 at 1:40am
1. USB 2.0 actually has a higher theoretical maximum speed than firewire. USB2 = 480Mbps, Firewire = 400Mbps. However, from what I understand, firewire is more consistent, making it a better medium for external hard drives

2. I have a 2.5" USB 2.0 KingWin enclosure, and it works great for me. I know others may recommend against KingWin, but it's all I have any (good) experience with.

3. Oh! Right, sorry: there is the first version of firewire, which is 400Mbps. The smaller port is firewire 800 which is, appropriately, 800Mbps - so that would definately be faster than USB 2.0
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post #3 of 15
6/7/05 at 10:19am
the smaller port is actually an unpowered firewire 400 port (IEEE1394b)

all laptops right now only support the 400 version. 800 version port is not backwards compatible so you'll need some kind of PCMCIA adaptor if one exists
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post #4 of 15
6/7/05 at 12:02pm
As far as recommendations, I have a Bytecc firewire/usb2 combo enclosure that has worked brilliantly for me.
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post #5 of 15
6/7/05 at 2:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by awingedpig
the smaller port is actually an unpowered firewire 400 port (IEEE1394b)

all laptops right now only support the 400 version. 800 version port is not backwards compatible so you'll need some kind of PCMCIA adaptor if one exists
Sorry, my bad.
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post #6 of 15
6/7/05 at 2:51pm
Firewire dosn't us your CPU where usb does so there is that benfit.
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post #7 of 15
6/7/05 at 2:59pm
I own and swear by:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=5201743218

very small and uses both USB and Firewire.
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post #8 of 15
6/7/05 at 3:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by awingedpig
all laptops right now only support the 400 version. 800 version port is not backwards compatible so you'll need some kind of PCMCIA adaptor if one exists
I've read that firewire 800 is backwards compatible with any firewire 400 device, you just have to buy a 4- or 6-pin converter (firewire 800 uses a 9-pin connector)

what do you mean by support the 400 version? because i know the Asus Z71V has firewire 800 on it ...
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post #9 of 15
6/7/05 at 3:45pm
Z71V has firewire 800?

I didn't know that. interesting.
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post #10 of 15
6/7/05 at 3:56pm
yea, and i think a few others that they make do too.

1394B = firewire 800
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post #11 of 15
6/7/05 at 4:04pm
If you want a mobile hardrive, I would suggest a 2.5" laptop HDD and a 2.5" external enclosure. I would recommend against a 3.5" enclosure because the HDD requires a seperate power supply. Going with USB2.0 should be better since it is standard with most desktop and laptop computers, while firewire is fast, it isn't available on many computers.

Firewire is definitely faster than USB2.0 but interms of a 2.5" enclosure, you will not see much difference interms of speed due to the 2.5" HDD being the bottleneck for data-transfer rates (assuming that u arn't going to buy a 7200rpm 2.5").

You can cheaply find all of what you are looking for on ebay.

hope this helps.
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post #12 of 15
6/7/05 at 8:50pm
Also most of the HDD's in a USB2 case will also be powered through the USB2 port OK whereas this may not be so witha firewire case - I think they need external power supplies?
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post #13 of 15
6/7/05 at 9:25pm
Make sure the case has some kind of fan to cool the harddrive.
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post #14 of 15
6/8/05 at 1:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AngryofMayfair
Also most of the HDD's in a USB2 case will also be powered through the USB2 port OK whereas this may not be so witha firewire case - I think they need external power supplies?
Not true, Firewire provides power (think iPod).
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post #15 of 15
6/8/05 at 2:03am
of course, you gotta make sure you have the 6-pin connector, or the spiffy new 9-pin connector. the 4-pin connectors are unpowered
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