[DMBand0026]

I'm in the market for an external hard drive of the FireWire 400 type. I've looked around at a lot of the major sites and have found a few things...

From MacMall

Well, I kinda lied, I haven't found a lot of stuff specifically because I checked NewEgg and I was somewhat overwhelmed

Point is, I need a 120GB external HDD, preferably FW400 (USB 2.0 is acceptable, but I'd much rather have FW) and it has to be cheap. I'm on a college kid budget here.

Anyone who could point me in the direction of a quality drive for the right price, it would be much appreciated

[Luca]

External enclosures: use the search thing to specify the criteria, namely, Firewire and 3.5".

Hard drives: Make sure you get one with 8 MB of cache. And make sure it's not a SATA.

[DMBand0026]

So it's better to buy the drive and the enclosure separately?

If I do go that route, it's really nothing more than putting the drive in the enclosure and powering up, correct?

[709]

Originally Posted by DMBand0026 So it's better to buy the drive and the enclosure separately? If I do go that route, it's really nothing more than putting the drive in the enclosure and powering up, correct?

Correct. I'ts super easy and much cheaper than buying a stock FW/USB drive.

Personally I'm a fan of this enclosure (sorry Eugene ). It's a bit more expensive (FW800) but after you've had one 800 drive you'll never go back to 400.

[DMBand0026]

I don't have FW 800 though, otherwise I'd be all over that one. It's a little on the expensive side too. I know I sound like a cheapo here, but I really gotta watch the funds here, I'm on a tight budget.

Thanks for the suggestions, keep 'em comin

[709]

If you're on a really tight budget and USB 2.0 is acceptable, I'd also suggest keeping an eye on dealmac. There's usually at least one enclosure in the 'storage' section for pretty darn cheap.

[Luca]

USB 2.0 is a bit cheaper, maybe $30 vs. $40, but I think you can't boot from a USB 2.0 hard drive. Not sure on that one.

One hard drive, even a fast one, cannot saturate the FW400 bus (50 megabytes per second). You shouldn't have any problems with that. But I'd say definitely look for one that DOESN'T have a fan. The ones with fans make noise and are irritating. Pay an extra $5 or $8 or whatever, it's worth it.