Spec me an external HDD

[~D~]

I've suddenly got the urge to invest in a backup solution as I have nothing of the sort at the moment.

I have a Maximus Formula and thus have firewire but no eSATA, therefore I am guessing this limits my options.

The forum seem to recommend the Icybox but I am unsure as to whether it has firewire connectivity or not.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[chuck990]

portable or external?

if portability is not an issue then it comes down to budget, if you can then i suggest a caddie (or "enclosure") such as:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-004-AK (comes highly recomended) and then add and HDD you choose (3.5" in this case)

 

[~D~]

Just external.

That one doesn't seem to be firewire though, wouldn't USB transfer be too slow?

 

[chuck990]

wouldn't have thought so, USB can do up to 400Mb/s and Firewire 600Mb/s (i think, these figures may be absolute ******** but i'm pretty sure theyre close to reality)

 

[~D~]

I thought USB wasn't so good for data transfer (judging on the date things are copied to my usb drive).

By the way, is it worth waiting for the 1TB 2.5" drives? Saving a power socket sounds appealing.

Also, chuck990, isn't that enclosure PATA only?

 

[rpstewart]

I have a Maximus Formula and thus have firewire but no eSATA, therefore I am guessing this limits my options.

Not really, you can use one of these to route an internal SATA port to the outside. Only limitiation is that hotswapping might be a pain if you have your SATA controller configured in IDE mode.

For less than 4 quid it's worth going for, the speed difference between eSATA and Firewire, let alone USB is huge.

 

[AbsenceJam]

USB is about 30MB/s actual throughput. Firewire 800 can go up to about 60 as I recall, 400 less so. Could get an eSATA bracket.

 

[~D~]

Nice, I didn't know about that. Yea, I'll go for the adapter.

What's the best enclosure that takes SATA drives? Probably going to stick a 1.5TB WD Green in there.