External hard drive (500gb&firewire800)

[dmegatool]

Hi guys,
So I really need a external drive now. So I thought you guys could help find what I'm looking for.

- I need 500gb ( I could go for 320gb but the price would have to be very low)
- I'm looking for something firewire (800 but if it's only 400... that will do it.)
- less than 200$ would be nice...

I found this (http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10764) but it's only usb2 and with my MBP, I got 2 firewire that don't do anything.

Edit: Forgot to explain that I'm in canada and I can't order anything on the canadian Lacie site. The one I saw was at futureshop. Maybe you could point me a store that I can order other Lacie (or anything else) products.

[Ryan]

In USD, you could get a Macally enclosure and Seagate drive for that much, but those prices are from NewEgg and they don't ship to Canada AFAIK.

But, if you can't find a Firewire 800 drive, the Macally enclosure would work. I have the Firewire 400 variant and it's pretty good. Solid construction.

Sorry I can't be of more help. :(

[PB PM]

dmegatool: Check out NCIX. I know that they carry at least one FW800 case, which last time I check was around $120 Cdn.

[dmegatool]

Thanks for your suggestions guys. Really appreciate. I looked what you suggested and I can't find a cheap 500gb drive that would make the "custom build" interesting. With case at 100$ it doesn't let much room for the HD price :)

I've find something on ebay that's pretty similar to the LaCie d2 Quadra. It has eSata, 2 FW800 and a USB2. Comes with all the cable even a FW800 to FW400. The HD is a 500GB 7200RPM 16MB cache. 200$.

[Luca]

Another place to try would be TigerDirect.ca. They have some 500 GB bare hard drives available for around $130 CDN, and I also saw a 400 GB one for less than $100 CDN. Availability of FW-800 enclosures, though, has never been very good. They're considered "professional" or "specialty" items, and they tend to cost a lot and only ship with large, expensive hard drives. They did have the Lacie d2 Quadra at 500 GB, but it was ~$280 CDN. I didn't see any empty external enclosures with FW800 for sale there, either.

[dmegatool]

Availability of FW-800 enclosures, though, has never been very good. They're considered "professional" or "specialty" items, and they tend to cost a lot and only ship with large, expensive hard drives.You're so right on this. When I went to Futureshop and asked if they had a FW800 external HD, the guy told me that is was really in demand and they only got 1 model. But they had like 200 USB models. It really seems like they are not considered "main stream".

** The only FW drive they had was a 1TB Lacie with built-in raid0... a little bit overkill for me :)

[Yonzie]

1TB of External RAID0... Sweet. :no:

[dmegatool]

1TB of External RAID0... Sweet. :no:

Ya really (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10922) :)

[rampancy]

G-TECH (http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm) has a FW 400/800/USB 2 drive at 500 GB for $250 - they seem to be out of stock at their online store, though. I guess demand for them spiked when they got featured in Apple's promo materials for Time Machine...

They have a whole lot of Canadian resellers (http://www.g-technology.com/Purchase/Purchase-CAN.cfm) so hopefully there should be one in your area that carries the 500 GB drive.

Carbon Computing (http://www.carbonation.com/sales/index.html), which just opened up another location in Ottawa I think, sells a USB 2/FW 400 500 GB external drive (their own in-house brand) for $199; I don't know if they do mail orders. MacDoc (http://macdoc.com/), a small Toronto indie Mac dealer also sells their own USB 2/FW 400 GB drive at around the same price as the G-Drive ($250). I don't know if they do orders, and I haven't bought anything off of them, but I have heard good things about them from the people on the ehmac.ca forums, and I think one of their staff is even an active member. They'd probably ship it out to you if you asked them.

Hope that helps!

EDIT: I just remembered that Canada Computers (http://canadacomputers.com) is a Toronto-area computer store which would probably ship to you. They list an FW 800 enclosure at $112, but it's not in stock. They do have some pretty good FW 400 enclosures though. I have two of the Vantec NexStar 3 USB 2/FW 400 enclosures and they've both worked well with both my MacBook and MacBook Pro.

[danielsza]

I do a lot of my shopping at Canada Computers. I've only ever had one problem with them, and they solved it quickly. I bought a firewire 400/usb case from them... i think it was $40.00 or so...

I also bought a OWC Mercury Elite Pro, from Other World Computing... I was surprised how quickly they shipped it... It's a nice case, has USB2 & FireWire 400/800...(I think it was $120US, but the shipping was a little expensive). I put two seagate 750 drives in it... (I bought the drives from canada computers)

[dmegatool]

Thx for pointing Canada Computers. I'll look to see if I can find a combination of enclosure and HD there for 200$.

Anyways they seems to have great price so for my future needs, that will be a good place to look at.

[chris e boy]

I've got one of these (http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/product.htm?pid=10894). Its quiet and very, very fast over FW800 and also supports ESATA (which you can use on a Mac Pro with a little work), USB2 and FW400.

the best thing about it is it has an aluminium case that feels very well built.

[Boomerangmacuser]

Regardless of brand or connection type, I strongly recommend getting a separate enclosure and drive as opposed to an AIO. My co-worker got a Mybook and the case can't be opened to swap out the drive. I love the fact that when I bought the enclosure I had an 80Gb drive in there. Then I saw a sweet deal on a 320Gb at a local store and just popped it in.

There seems to be a big jump in price when you go from USB/FW400 to USB/FW400/800. Do you really need the extra speed the 800 will give you? My 2 cents... Stick with the 400 and get a larger capacity drive.

[dmegatool]

I purchased this (https://oyendigital.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=E&Product_Code=EB3-72-500-SWE) last week. It's shipped and I now waiting. Seems nice.

[iDorf]

Firewire, USB, yes, but may want to consider network drive. Nothing hanging off one computer, and easy accessibility with all machines.

[PB PM]

My own issue with network drives is the price to get one with Gig lan, which is often more expensive than FW800.