07-07-2007, 04:13 AM

Hey everyone, I have a 4200 2.5 SATA Drive that used to be in my old Vaio FE Notebook sitting around. I was thinking of buying an 2.5 FW400/800 External Enclose and sticking the drive in there. It's main use is pretty much just Music Storage and Image storage for portable use. I would copy over my audio collection and some images and use it with iTunes when when I'm not home. It wouldn't be used as my main backup for my audio or pictures, just a portable storage for my music and pictures. I was thinkin maybe I could pro-long the life of my internal HDD this way, since it does seem to be a pain in the butt to swap out Interlal HDD on the new MBP. Plus, this 4200 RPM drive is just sittign on my desk collecting dust. What do you guys think? Any help on this is greatly appreciated

07-07-2007, 11:33 AM

Can it be done - yes

Is it worth it - Only you can answer the question as to whether the cost of the enclosure is worth being able to use that drive as a portable device or not.

07-07-2007, 08:48 PM

Thanks for the reply.

My concern was actually if FW400 or FW800 would be overkill for a 4200 RPM SATA Drive. I'll be getting the enclosure none the less, cause I know I'll need a portabe HDD Storage anyways.

07-07-2007, 09:12 PM

Have not tested it, but I think the drive would give you better throughput on FW400 than USB.

Personally think it would be worth the little extra investment in the 400 and/or 800 connections in addition to USB just for the future. When the drive fails or you just decide to get a new one to replace, you have an enclosure that will handle your new drive.

Just make sure the enclosure is for SATA if indeed the drive is that. There are a lot of enclosures that still accept only IDE devices.

FYI: I have a quad enclosure; USB, FW400, FW800 & eSATA for my external drive. I am using the FW800 port, but to be honest the increase over FW400 is not that significant in all of my testing. You could probably save a little by just getting FW400 capability, and if you're using it to connect to any windows machines, FW800 is still pretty rare with them.

07-07-2007, 10:03 PM

Thanks for the reply and info.

The SATA enclosure I'll be buying uses an Oxford controller with firewire 400 and 800 as well as USB. I've read Oxford is suppose to be one of the better, if not the best controller available. I've only had experience with FW400 myself, and honestly, I'm content and happy with those speeds. It was definately faster than USB, and that's all that I'm looking for.

I'm debating between making my own external 3.5 inch drive with the same controller for Desktop use, or purchasing one of those G-tech Drives.

Here is the 3.5 inch drive I'm talking about, the 2.5 inch version looks the same. http://www.satagear.com/SATA-PRO-35A...Enclosure.html

It's a good bit cheaper on eBay.

07-08-2007, 09:13 AM

Should be a good enclosure - similar to the one I bought from OWC - same Oxford 924 chipset, (think they've gone up in price since I bought mine)

Admittedly, almost all the reviews of G-tech are favorable. My issue with them is there is nowhere that lists the specific drive you will get with the enclosure. I have read of people finding refurb drives in their enclosures from G-tech. The warranty is the same as OWC's for the enclosure/drive - but OWC tells you what drive you will get and passes on the balance of the manufacturers warranty on the drive to you.

By the time I actually purchase new drives, I've narrowed my choice down to 1 or 2 options based on my research and my intended use for the drive. And those are the ones I want.

Dunno, as a semi-knowledgeable hardware guy, I get real leery of purchasing hard drives, RAM, etc. from someone that doesn't reveal what brand it is you're getting.

07-08-2007, 10:56 AM

Ahh....thanks for the little bit of information about G-Tech drives. I didn't know about the issues with refurbished drives. Yea, I was looking through their website trying to figure out which drives they use, and I could not find any info on them. I was going with OWC for the 2.5 External, but the only Sata External they have was the one with the clear casing, not a big fan of clear cases though. So I did some more searching and found the one I posted earlier. Thanks again for the headsup.

07-08-2007, 11:02 AM

The aluminum quad enclosure is for SATA drives (the link I have above, and not bad looking)- but you are correct all the other aluminum single drive cases are still IDE.

I didn't want the Maxtor they put in it, so I just got the case, but looks like the one you've found is basically the same internally.

G-tech, yeah the other thing about them is not selling the enclosures without a drive - leads me to believe they're making most of their money on the drive side of the deal.