3.5 Inch Firewire Enclosure???

Hi all,
I have a 3.5 inch firewire enclosure at home and I'm wanting to leave it turned on 24/7. The only problem is that the firewire enclosure doesn't have an inbuilt fan. Is this going to be a problem and cause overheating which will damage the hard drive?
Stu

I would contact the enclosure's manufacturer to see what conditions they have tested it within.
Also, just in case, you should always keep your data backed up to something separate as my FAQ explains:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

Similar Messages

Need Advice On Using A New Firewire Enclosure

Just bought an external Firewire enclosure. I'll install either a Maxtor 250G HD or the original/shipped Quantum 20G in the enclosure.
I'd appreciate advice on when and when not to turn on or unplug the enclosure, OS installation, etc, etc. Will it show in Startup Disk Prefs and just boot to it when chosen? The Quantum has been my backup HD but it's corrupted at the moment and needs to be erased. It's a toss-up on which will be ext and which will be int. I'd like to utilize the capacity of the Maxtor, but I'm loath to use the Quantum as my 'main' OS drive. Thoughts?
And just some basic tips on using external enclosures would be most welcome!

do not ever hot swap firewire devices, ever. basically, put your harddrive in the enclosure, make the connections and then turn it on. use disk utility to format the drive, no matter what it is, even if it's fresh outta the box and claims to already be mac formatted. do that and it should mount automatically. when you want to turn off the drive, always always always eject it from the desktop (command-E) and then you can safely turn it off and unplug. when you want to remount it, plug it in if unplugged, turn on the enclosure and it'll mount on the desktop automatically.
i buy bare drives and stick them enclosures from OWC and i always follow these procedures and they've never let me down with so much as a hiccup. good luck.
zeb

Upgrading SATA drives & putting old drives into firewire enclosure

I just ran out of space on my two 250GB internal drives on my G5. These were the BTO units, Maxtor 6Y250M0 and I understand they have a 8MB buffer and 9.3ms seek time.
I am planning on purchasing two 500GB drives to replace them. I have a few performance questions and would like to solicit some opinions on some drives.
First, I understand jumping to 500GB would really slow things down, is this true? What about 750GB?
Second, what brand/model would be recommended? I store music, videos, and lots of pictures plus I play heavy processor load games.
Third, SATA 300? My machine is only 150 but I do plan on upgrading one day to a Mac Pro... Will the slowdown be worse than just buying a 150?
Forth, I am planning on purchasing a firewire enclosure for the two older drives, preferably a dual unit, any recommendations there. (For aesthetic purposes I would like something that looks great). I thought about USB but my machine is only USB 1.0 and I just can't bring myself to that slowdown.
Any recommendations and responses are greatly appreciated. I used to sell this stuff for years but have been out of the loop for sometime now...
5 2.0DP w/ 4.5GB, 23", 6800 Ultra Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Thank you japamac, The hatter and tobszanski for your ideas and help. Here is what I ended up doing.
I purchased the OWC Mercury Elite-AL FireWire 800/400 + USB2 Pro Dual SATA drive enclosure to hold both of the Maxtor drives that came with my machine:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW924AL2K/
This enclosure is great, looks like the G5 and has all the connectivity I was looking for. I then purchased two Maxtor MaXLine Pro 500 SATA II drives:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Maxtor/7H500F0/
I used SuperDuper! to copy on the new 500GB and now I am in business, with plenty of space to spare. SuperDuper is a great app: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13803
I was going to use Carbon Copy Cloner but I was reading somewhere that they haven't updated it to run with 10.4 but I am more than satisfied using SuperDuper.
Thank you all for your help....
5 2.0DP w/ 4.5GB, 23", 6800 Ultra Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hacking a LaCie ATA External Firewire Enclosure

Recently hacked my FireWire LaCie external To make it a universal FireWire plug-n'-play ATA adapter for just about any ATA 3.5 drive. Total cost was $0.00!! It works like a dream and is far faster than any ATA USB external, since it's Firewire.
A useful repurpose for an otherwise tired LaCie external. Thought others might like to know it can be done easily. This is so handy—Especially if the drive in your LaCie is full or needs to be replaced and LaCie is out of warranty. It's very simple. All need is some extra time, and a bunch of old drives laying around collecting dust. I'm now able to store all my native iMovie and iDVD files on the old ATA drives. :-)
The Story:
I had an old LaCie 120 GB external that housed an ATA Western Digital HD. After almost filling up the drive with back-up files, (a few years later), I noticed the HD was faltering. It was having trouble writing files to other drives and the like. I decided it was time to tear the external housing apart and maybe put a new drive in it. First I copied off all my important data to another drive.
After getting it apart I was surprised to see that the drive inside was nothing but a Western Digital ATA 120 GB drive. I initially thought it would be a LaCie brand HD.
It was connected with a Molex power plug and a short 40 pin data ribbon. I lengthened both so I could quickly attach drives on the outside of the case by simply plugging them in. Ie.- (Plug-N-Play). Just make sure the jumpers on the drives you want to plug in are set to "Master" and your good to go.
The How:
I added length to the Molex power wires by first removing the stock LaCie Molex power plug from the 4 power wires, then soldered on 4 more inches of wire that were already coming out of a used Molex plug. Thus, lengthening the power wires by 4 inches. I used shrink tubing on all the soldered connections then covered that with electrical tape. I added a zip tie to the frame-work on the inside of the LaCie case and anchored the power wires to it. That way, the power wires would not be accidentally pulled out of the circuit board when attaching and reattaching drives. I replaced the LaCie (short) drive data ribbon with a much longer drive data ribbon scabbed out of an old PC. Now I could attach any ATA drive on the outside of the LaCie case, without opening it up. I did have to make some cut-outs in the aluminum LaCie case to accommodate the exiting power wires and data cable to be able to snap the LaCie case back together. It's not glamourous, but it works great for attaching and removing any ATA HD quickly.
Cheers! :-)

BDAqua,
Thanks. And thanks for that tip. Your right that some of the enclosures are limited to the drive size that came with the enclosure. Luckily my enclosure was made for at least 120GB. Most of the old HDs I have laying around are smaller than 120GB. Not sure if the LaCie enclosure would have a limit on it or not.

How large a HD can go in my external firewire enclosure?

I realize this is not actually a Mac product, but rather a Made for Mac product, but here goes anyway. I have an older Fantom Drives external firewire drive that I bought for G4 which moved to my G5. It is about 120gb. I am curious how large a drive and what type I can put in this enclosure. Here is the info from system monitor, if that helps:
OXFORD IDE Device:
Manufacturer: Oxford Semiconductor Ltd.
Model: 0x1
GUID: 0x30E034E002102E
Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
OXFORD IDE Device Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x137
Product Revision Level:
Sub-units:
OXFORD IDE Device SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 115.04 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk4
OS9 Drivers: No
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
Firewire HD:
Capacity: 114.91 GB
Available: 80.19 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk4s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/Firewire HD

You can probably google Fantom + Oxford but... my guess is it may not have the firewire bridge support for 48-bit LBA to use large drives.
And it most likely needs a firmware update if possible. When Tiger came out many needed such updates.
Instead, I'd just get a new Oxford 934 FW case from OWC with FW800/400 USB2.
Insures less trouble and with work with current OS.

Firewire enclosure not recognized

i recently bought a generic FW enclosure. mac mini ignores it completely. its like it doesnt exist (no device connected).
the device seems to be working fine in USB mode, but i want to use it trough FW
any ideas what should i try?

Since USB is processor controlled and FW has it's own controller, it is not uncommon to find devices where one or other bus is fine and the other isn't.
In your case, it may be that the FW chipset in the external drive is faulty, or has failed in some way, or if you have no other FW devices to test it with, that the FW interface in your mini has failed.
In the event of the latter it may be all you need to do is reset the system. You don't say whether yours is an Intel mini or an earlier PPC one, however reset as follows, making sure you use the right procedure depending on which system you have:-
If an Intel mini, reset the SMC as follows:
-From the Apple menu, choose Shut Down (or if the computer is not responding, hold the power button until it turns off).
-Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord and any display cables.
-Wait at least 15 seconds.
-Plug the power cord back in, +making sure the power button is not being pressed+ at the time.
-Then reconnect your keyboard and mouse to the computer.
-Press the power button on the back to start up your computer.
If a PC mini, reset the PMU as follows:
-Unplug all cables from the computer, including the power cord.
-Wait 10 seconds.
-Plug in the power cord +while simultaneously pressing and holding the power button+ on the back of the computer.
-Let go of the power button.
-Press the power button once more to start up your Mac mini.
If that does not help, and with the drive connected with a FW cable and powered up, open Disk Utility (in Applications>Utilities) and let us know if you see the external drive listed on the left.

External firewire enclosure. Which one?

Hi,
My old G4 tower had two extra hard drives, and I'd like to put both of them in ONE HD enclosure so I can access them from my iMac. Does such an enclosure exist to support two separate drives? I'd like to avoid getting a separate case for each drive.
Thanks;
J.
iMac 24" 2.33 CD2 Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2GB RAM

Some extra information:
RAID 0: Also called "stripe" mode. Operations on the array will be splitted on both drive's; for example, a large write will be split up as 32 kB to disk 1, 32 kB to disk 2, 32 kB to disk 1, then 32 kB to disk 2, and so on. The read and write performance will increase, because read's and write's are done in parallel on the devices. This is usually the main reason for running RAID-0. Your read and write performance will be about twice as fast. Of Course, the disks must be of equal size. If one disk is larger than another, your RAID device will be the size of the smallest disk
RAID 1: This mode maintains an exact mirror of the information from one disk on the other disk. Of Course, the disks must be of equal size. If one disk is larger than another, your RAID device will be the size of the smallest disk. Write performance is often the same or worse than on a single device, because identical copies of the data written must be sent to every disk in the array. But your data is really save, if one disk does fail, all the information is still on the other one.
If you are not interested in a RAID set-up, you can ofcours buy a enclosure without the RAID function's.
Hopefully this is helpfull or solved your problem. (please see the button's above this message)

My old internal drive now in FireWire enclosure, BC option dimmed at start

This disk ran BC with xp as an internal drive and the Mac firmware
was ok running Snow Leopard, but simply moving the drive outside
made it hang. Are there firmware updates to be applied? The ones
on there were done several years ago under Tiger.

http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
Short answer is, Boot Camp will not install/read Windows to/from an external drive.
Read the Boot Camp FAQ's or the Installer Guide and it will answer all your other questions.

Using a multi-drive SATA enclosure on a Mac with just Firewire?

I currently have four external hard drive enclosures, loaded up with 14 500GB drives. The current 1TB+ drives only seem to come as SATA drives, so I need to migrate to SATA enclosures that hook up via Firewire.
The problem is, such cases don't seem to exist at comparable prices. I was able to get four-drive IDE to Firewire enclosures for under $200, and they are much much more to get similar SATA drive enclosures.
USB is an option, and cheaper, but USB takes more CPU time and is slower than Firewire, and that's a showstopper for video work. THe data copy I did last night via Firewire took 9 hours... I can't imagine stepping back to USB 2.0 (and yes, it's an old debate, but benchmarks show USB 2.0 is slower even if is supposedly faster on paper).
I have searched all over for Firewire to SATA adapters, and so far have found only two types:
FirmTek SeriTek/SpyderHUB - $120
http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-spyder/
Input USB or Firewire, and outputs two SATA ports. But, it does not support "Port Multiplier" cases, so you really can only hook up two seperate SATA drives to it. No good.
The other is from COOL DRIVES, with a $30 model and a $60 model:
http://www.cooldrives.com/sata-to-firewire-usb-mini-converter.html
The $30 model (above) is a USB or Firewire to SATA, period. The $60 model adds a Firewire pass through:
http://cooldrives.stores.yahoo.net/satofimiad2x.html
The $60 model claims to support up to 1000GB (1TB) drives, and the $30 says only 500GB, so neither is good if I plan to move to 1.5TB drives.
So my goal is to be able to buy a multi-SATA drive enclosure, and plug it up to Firewire. The problem is price. A 4-bay SATA-Firewire enclosure is much, much more than the same model that is USB/SATA. For instance:
2-drive SATA to Firewire/USB - $161
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215067
2-drive SATA to USB - $119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215056
So $30 more lets me buy a four drive firewire/IDE enclosure. SATA/IDE converters for each drive (to use my existing case) can be $16 each, so that's not really an option with 14 drives either.
So my thought is -- buy a cheap multi-drive modern SATA enclosure, then use a Firewire to SATA adapter -- way cheaper than the other solutions.
I can't be the only one who has wanted to do this, but no one seems to know if it works (including the companies selling the stuff).
Anyone done it?

An update of my experimentation:
http://web.me.com/allenhuffman/Appleause/Home/Entries/2009/1/17FireWire_to_SATA_adapters_for_theMac.html
CoolDrives device does not support Port Multiplier enclosures, so it can only address one hard drive at a time. Bummer.
If anyone would come out with a FireWire 800 to eSATA (with Port Multiplier support), it would be a fantastic solution to this.

Whither firewire? looking for SATA / Firewire (1394A) drive enclosure

I still think (rather I know) that Firewire (1394A) is faster than USB, for applications like storing an external music library for iTunes.
However, I won't go so far as to say FW is being phased out but I am having a dickens of a time finding a FW enclosure.
can anyone reading this steer me to a good SATA / firewire enclosure out there? something that takes a SATA drive on the inside and connects to a firewire 1394A 400 port on the outside.
I came across this - and it says "ATA-133" - am not sure if that's P-ATA or S-ATA, as far as I know, those connectors are NOT compatible. elsewhere on the page it says IDE to FW, so maybe this unit is NOT what I need:
<http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=firewire+enclosure&cid=400903329999346 1364>
help!
w

Okay - here's the specific scenario - am intending to run iTunes from a G4 powerBook with an 80 GB internal drive.
I want to add to the library by using an external drive of roughly 200 GB, maybe more.
The only issue is that I know the larger the drive, the slower iTunes will be, the harder it will be to work in the program etc.
And it will make it even slower if part of the library is external. Since I assumed Firewire is at least somewhat faster, I wanted to go with a FW drive...
so I ask you: will it make any difference? will FW be any faster for the program than USB?
Also, I see that there are TONS of drive enclosures for SATA drives with USB ports - more than I can count - and quite a few with both USB and eSATA (I would love to use that with the powerBook, but of course it doesn't have PCI slots). Am surprised at the dearth of Firewire enclosures!
(yes, you guessed correctly, I have a number of SATA drives lying around that I wanted to re-use for this purpose...)
thanks
W

Transfer files to MacBook from external drives & MacPro without FireWire

I just realized my Macbook (13 inch aluminum) doesn't have a FireWire port. WHY? I can't believe I didn't notice when I bought the thing. I assumed that a FireWrire port was standard like USB. I know that I can transfer files from my MacPro Desktop using migration assistant. However, it doesn't let me pick and choose which files to transfer. Is the best plan to transfer everything all at once and then delete what I don't want from the MacBook? I've also got a lot of individual files & folders on external FireWire drives that I'd like to copy to my MacBook. Is there a way to hook up an external FireWire hard drive to my MacBook? Are there FireWire to USB adapters? Am I going to have to transfer these files via USB memory sticks, CD-R's & DVD-R's? Or maybe it would be a better idea to dump them on my MacPro, use Migration assistant to copy it all at once and then pick and choose what to keep on my MacBook.
I know I've got a lot of questions. Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I assumed that a FireWrire port was standard like USB.
It is, just not on the aluminum Macbook.
It can be done with USB, but it is slower and less reliable.
The hard drive is fairly easy to remove on the aluminum Macbook. I would remove it and install it in an external Firewire enclosure temporarily to transfer your files quickly and reliably, then put the drive back in the Macbook.
Firewire allows two operating modes. One is asynchronous, like USB which suffers from latency, bus contention and collisions.
The other is isochronous mode, and it lets a device carve out a certain dedicated amount of bandwidth that other devices can't touch. It gets a certain number of time slices each second all its own. The advantages for audio/video should be obvious: that stream of data can just keep on flowing, and as long as there isn't more bandwidth demand than the wire can handle, nothing will interfere with it. No collisions, no glitches.

External enclosure for internal drive?

If I replace the 80 GB hard drive that will be coming with my Macbook with a lareger drive running at 7200 RPM, I would like to convert the stock one into an external drive.
Can anyone recommend a specific "enclosure" that will convert the 2.5" with the SATA interface, offer both USB and firewire connections, and for a cheap price??? I would really appreciate the insight, my search thus far has me scratching my head....

Unfortunately there isn't a cheap Firewire enclosure yet. There is a really good USB one, which I have <a href="http://cavemonkey50.com/2006/07/coolgears-25-inch-sata-to-usb-hard-drive- enclosure/"
reviewed on my website</a>.
As far as Firewire v. USB, it depends what you'll use the drive for. If it's just for occasional backup or file storage, USB will work fine for you. However if you want to transfer huge files back and forth between the drive often, you'll definitely want a Firewire connection. There is a great benchmark comparison that you should check out to see the actual performance difference. Now just keep in mind that the MacBook only has a Firewire 400 port.

Which HDD connection is faster -- Internal ATA or External Firewire?

I want to set up a HDD as a scratch drive for Photoshop. Which connection would be faster -- hooking it up to my internal ATA 100 cable or an external firewire enclosure? I do not have a drive presently hooked up to my ATA 100 cable since I'm running my boot drive off a SATA controller card, so there would NOT be two drives on the ATA 100, just the scratch drive. Thanks.

The speed ratings of drives above ATA-66 is mostly specsmanship.
A 10,000 RPM drive can only source data off the platters at about 50 MBytes/sec. So an ATA-133 drive has a tremendous pipe, but very seldom can fill that pipe with continuous data. The processor can write to the drive cache that fast, but at some point the cache will fill up and you will still have to wait for the discs to spin around so that the data can be written into the right block.
The data density per square inch on a 7200 RPM drive is about the same as the 10,000 RPM drives, but you have to wait for it to move under the read/write head, and the platters are spinning slower, so the transfer rates are lower.
If transfer rates were the most important factor, we would all be using Fiber Channel SCSI drives with transfer rates in the GigaBytes/second. Oh, and one meter cables cost over US$30 EACH.

How do I put my MacBook in "target disk mode" without FireWire?

I bought an aluminum MacBook (13 inch) and am shocked that there is no FireWire port. WHY? I want to hook it up to my MacPro as a targeted disk to copy over some but not all of my files. Also, I'd like to connect to some external hard drives to get some backed up files. Can I do this with USB? Is there a USB to FireWire adapter?

The hard drive is fairly easy to remove on the aluminum Macbook. I would remove it and install it in an external Firewire enclosure temporarily to transfer your files quickly and reliably, then put the drive back in the Macbook.
Ethernet works great, IF you have two FUNCTIONAL machines. The great thing about Firewire Target Disk mode was that if the HD/OS was corrupted, or the computer was for some reason unbootable you could still get data off of it quickly, without tools or special equipment.
Ethernet works great, IF you have two FUNCTIONAL machines. The great thing about Firewire Target Disk mode was that if the HD/OS was corrupted, or the computer was for some reason unbootable you could still get data off of it quickly, without tools or special equipment.

Any opinions on Oyen external hard drive for Macbook Pro 13 inch 10.5.8

I have a new 13 inch macbook pro 10.5.8....
I need an external hard drive and was thinking of getting
Oyen 3.5-inch FireWire 800/400, eSATA, USB External Hard Drive......Anyone have experience with this
company or proucts?
Any recommendations for a a different company? Any external hard drive that should be avoided?
Thanks

eww wrote:
Any external hard drive that should be avoided?
Yes: I would avoid Western Digital external drives — all of them. The hard drives themselves are fine, but the hardware in WD's enclosures produces no end of problems.
Thanks for the quick response......One of the detals given on the Oyen website regading the external hard dive is *Internal Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS*
I am not very computer literate.....Does this mean this is basically a Western Digital Product that should be avoided? Or is there a distinction between the "+company name"+ of the external hard drive and the producer of the internal drive? i.e. Is Western Digital producing products under a different name?
Thanks
Thanks

3.5 Inch Firewire Enclosure???

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