SATA to Firewire hard drive enclosure recommendations?

I just picked up my new MacBook Pro last week and am planning to sell my Dual 1.8 Powermac and white MacBook soon.
I have a 250GB 3.5" SATA drive in the PowerMac that I want to keep and put in an external enclosure for use with my MacBook Pro.
Any recommendations on SATA to Firewire 3.5" external hard drive enclosures? Of course I'd prefer it be as small as possible.
Thanks

I like this one.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW924AL1K/
Best of luck.

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Hard Drive Enclosure Recommendation

Hi Everyone,
It has been a long time since I've posted on these forums but I have a question I couldn't resolve myself. I was recently given a 500 GB hard drive from one of my friends old servers he was getting rid of. I purchased an enclosure from OWC and discovered that the transfer rates were abnormally slow. I put a different drive in the enclosure it works fine. In addition if I put my hard drive in a different enclosure it works fine. After talking with people I was led to believe that this particular server drive might just not work well with that particular enclosure. Is this possible?
My second question is: if I'm looking for a different enclosure, what should I get? Normally I just look at reviews from newegg or other sites, but this server drive seems to run particularly hot and I want to find one that will keep it cool. Any recommendations?
Thanks!

Usually OWC's enclosures are quite good. Are you sure you weren't slowing it down because of one of these other facts?
1. USB is slower for every USB item added to the bus. Look at Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info under the USB section to see if other USB items are sharing the bus.
2. USB may slow down after Energy Saver/Sleep goes off until the next reboot for many third party items. Same with Firewire. If the problem improves on reboot, recommend you dismount and remove the drive before putting the machine to sleep.
3. Firewire may get confused if certain non-standard things are connected and need to be reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US
4. Zapping the PRAM can also improve performance of peripherals:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
5. The amount of free space on either the main drive or the external drive can affect performance*:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
6. Heat may be a sign of improper ventilation, or a poorly working fan inside the case.
7.
I was recently given a 500 GB hard drive from one of my friends old servers
Your drive may be on its way out. SMART while a good test can't find every fault.
I'm really happy with the Newertech Voyager cases from OWC. They'll keep it cool simply by virtue of the fact the drive will be exposed, as opposed to inside a case filled with circuits, and their connectivity is often better than any other case I've used.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Firewire Hard Drive corrupts OS Lion and will not boot

I have re-installed OS lion on my macbook pro 5-6 times now. There seems to be some conflict with my firewire hard drive enclosure which causing it not to boot shortly after using it when restarting. I am trying to get all my data off this hard drive.
When I boot in Verbose Command + V
I get this error which goes into a loop and does not allow the computer to boot.
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
ERROR: Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
I end up having to reinstall the OS every time and it fixes it temporarily.

Fixed it without even reinstalling the OS this time. I connected a firewire 400 cable between the mac book pro and my other mac and held down the "t" key to boot the dead macbook pro as a hard drive on my other mac. The hard drive didn't show up but it seem to get it out of the loop it was locked in not allowing it to boot and unable to reinstall the OS. After restarting it booted right back up like normal.
This was an easy fix if my enclosure caused this problem again and does not allow my computer to boot after using the FW 800 cable.

SCSI/IDE/Firewire hard drive?

Hi all,
I've got a Power Mac G4 Quicksilver 2002, which has, I think, an ATA/66 bus, Firewire 400 and 64bit PCI slots. How do I find out for sure that the controller can only support up to ATA/66?
I've got a Cheetah U320 SCSI hard drive lying around spare. The boot hard drive I have in the mac right now is an ATA/100 IDE drive connected to the on-board IDE bus. I have a firewire hard drive enclosure.
So, my question is, to speed up the computer in general, should I buy an U320 SCSI controller, which will be expensive, use the SCSI hard drive as boot drive; or put the ATA/100 IDE drive in the firewire enclosure and use that as boot drive; or just leave the current boot drive as it is now?
Thanks very much for your help in advance!
Regards - Piers

In general, Adaptec cards supported in Macs were different from the PC versions, and had "PowerDomain" in their names.
Adaptec has no further interest in the Macintosh market, and dropped most support for Mac SCSI cards in 2002:
"Adaptec is no longer developing SCSI drivers for the Mac OS. Technical support is available for those products still in their complimentary support period; however, there will be no new SCSI drivers, firmware, or patches available."
Adaptec’s Mac OS compliance page

Recommended SCSI to SATA converter for older external hard drive enclosure?

I have a SCI external hard drive enclosure that I would like to be able to use a with a SATA drive. Can anyone suggest an inexpensive, reliable SCSI to SATA bridge board?

Those are both good points. It's a really nice enclosure (its a red FW400 drive that instead of being a rectangular box, it has this funky wave shape). I could just use the drive with an existing SCSI drive and make it for something that doesn't need high r/w speeds like documents.

SATA hard drive enclosure?

does anyone know if an ATA hard drive enclosure such as this one:
http://www.macally.com/spec/usb/storage_device/enclosure35.html
will fit a SATA/300 hard drive such as this one?
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4799749
It was such a good deal I had to get it.. but now I am just trying to find an enclosure for it...
Thanks!!!

Wiebetech make few sata enclsoure as well as Macally
Here is Wiebetech link:
1. http://www.wiebetech.com/products/toughtech.php
2. http://www.wiebetech.com/products/traydock.php
Form Macally:
1. http://www.macally.com/spec/usb/storagedevice/phr100su.html
hope this help
Flippo

Does FireWire 800 see individual drives in a four bay hard drive enclosure?

I am trying to find a four bay hard drive enclosure with FireWire 800 interface, AND through this one FW800 connection my OS can see the four hard drives individually (similar to USB interface or Port Multiplier on eSATA interface). Anyone knows whether such a product exists? Thanks.

I'm not sure you fully understand how the hardware/software RAID system functions. If you create a mirrored RAID with either then you have redundancy for drive failure. This would be the case for either hardware or software arrays. If you create a striped array with hardware or software then there is no redundancy regardless of which method you use.
An enclosure failure can occur whether you use software or hardware based arrays, so the failure risks are the same. There's no reason to believe that the failure risk of the enclosure would be greater than using software. In fact it's likely that the hardware would be more reliable. As for differences between eSATA and Firewire reliability I'm not sure why your would believe one is more reliable than the other unless you have data that supports such a conclusion.
If you are overly cautious about backups (which is a good thing) then I would look for an enclosure in which you could have two separate striped arrays. Then the two striped arrays are configured into a single mirrored array. That way you have two separate backups - a main one and the mirror. This gives both drive and data redundancy. The main risk is if one drive in each array fails simultaneously. The risk of this would be fairly low I would think. Even this risk can be removed if the box supports other types of arrays than just 0, 1, and 0-1. See the following:
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison>.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?

Why won't the SATA HDD fit into a hard drive enclosure?

So, I need to send my early 2011 MacBook Pro 13" to be repaired due to a power malfunction; the computer won't even recognize that the battery is there. Since Apple has no way of guarenteeing that they won't wipe my hard drive, I purchased a Sabrent 2.5" Hard Drive Enclosure so I can manually take out my hard drive and back it up on another computer (my Apple Care representative told me that this will not void the warranty). When I took my hard drive out, however, it wouldn't fit into the enclosure because there are pegs on the side of the drive that prevent it from properly sliding into the enclosure.
I'm thinking about just plugging in the bottom part (the USB connection to the computer) to the hard drive without putting it into the actual enclosure. The enclosure is just a tin case that will house the hard drive, so I can't see why just plugging the USB connection into the drive wouldn't work. But, I'm no computer expert so I'm not sure if this will fly. Will this pose any sort of risk to the hard drive? Does the hard drive absolutely need to be housed in the tin enclosure? Or can I just transfer all my data with the hard drive outside of the enclosure without any problems?
I'm pretty desparate, so any input would help. Thanks!

Those pegs are actually mounting screws & come off. You need a Torx T6 to remove them.

Hard drive enclosure

Hi,
I bought a Eaglebit- Writebox external hard drive enclosure to house my old iBook G3 40 GB hard drive. I'm fairly confident I assembled it properly, but I can't see to get my MacBook (original black model) to recognize it. It doesn't show up in Disk Utility, system profiler, or anywhere else. It is a IDE/SATA to USB enclosure. There is no power source other than the USB connection. When I switch the device on, it doesn't make any noise, so I'm not even sure if it is running?
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

The two USBs on the cord are to power the drive on certain computers that can't provide enough power on USB to spin the drive properly.
Can you provide a link to the enclosure you bought? (Looks like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817193033)
Despite it saying that it is compatible with Mac OS X, many people say it isn't in the reviews. You may be out of luck.
What are you trying to do? Do you have another computer? Do you have Leopard on another computer to use with Time Machine? If that's the case, I'd recommend you just clone the G3 HDD to a new external enclosure/HDD that you would buy if you are trying to transfer information.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go OWC is always good with their externals for 2.5" drives. Though this one is SATA and not ATA (IDE)

How can I use a firewire hard drive on a new Macbook with one USB-C only?

How can I use a firewire hard drive on a new MacBook with only one USB-C?

kaz-k is correct about FireWire not being supported by any possible connector or adaptor to USB-C and never will. However, there is no such thing as a FireWire Hard Drive. There are only SATA (or if it is a really old one, ATA,) drives in a FireWire enclosure. If you can remove the drive from the case/enclosure - bust it open somehow if it is a glued-up unit - then the drive can be placed into a regular USB3 enclosure. Then it can connect to the new MacBook via any one of the adaptors Apple sells.

Looking to Buy a Hard Drive Enclosure - Opinions?

I'm looking to buy a hard drive enclosure to attach to my linux box, and I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with the AEN-U35SE from Airlink (see http://www.airlink101.com/products/aenu35se.php ). It's fairly cheap at my local Fry's, but I'm wondering if anyone has had any issues with it, both with linux compatibility and cooling (they say it's fanless, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad). This would be attached to a server as bulk storage and wouldn't be under high usage, but I'm not wanting to doom my hard drive to certain death.
I can't find any reviews of it at all online, so I guess it must be at least fairly new. It's not carried by Tigerdirect or NewEgg, so I can't find anything there.
EDIT:
Gah, this product is apparantly discontinued, which is probably why NewEgg and TigerDirect didn't have it. Anything anyone can recommend? I only need one drive, and fanless is good as long as the drive doesn't overheat.
Last edited by arew264 (2009-06-12 22:46:07)

combuster wrote:Just avoid coolermaster enclosures, they don't work on linux, got a x-craft lite 250 on some laptop review competition and it doesn't get recognized...
Shame on them, that or just plain cheap crappy chips they used to make it
On the issue of enclosures .... nothing I can recommend because so far I'm not happy with any I bought. On the compatibility side they are all ok but after a good period of time (1year or 1.5years) the the hd sometimes starts acting strange. It stops and restarts almost immediately, a problem that doesn't happen when I plug it inside my desktop pc. In one of the external enclosures I have narrowed the problem to the power supply.
I could plug a Y power cable and monitor the voltages with a multimeter, the 5V rail would be 4.5V when the disk acted strange but for some reason sometimes the rail was close to the nominal 5V (4.9V~5.1V) and everything would work well.
Because of this I have started to believe that the power supplies that have the 12V and 5V output are a big no no, there are several reasons for me not to like it specially because all of the 2 I have behave the same way >_<.
If possible I would get an enclosure that receives only 12V from the outside and then generates the 5V internally but I believe that is hard to find.
The two enclosures I have have are:
http://en.vipower.com/products01_01.php?ID=154 (this one as a bit expensive usb2 to ide)
http://www.tecforsis.pt/produto.asp?idproduto=16907 (cheap box usb2 to sata/ide)

Multi-bay Hard Drive Enclosure?

Currently I have an external firewire hard drive, which I pretty much use for backing up files. I was thinking of purchasing another hard drive, but I really don't want two separate enclosures.
Can anyone recommend one unit that would hold two hard drives? Is it even worth it?
iMac 20" Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz 2 GB RAM, iBook G4 1.07 GHz 1.25 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I recently purchased (then returned) a dual enclosure from OWC (Other World Computing) for $120. It would not allow me to boot from either HD when two drives were in the enclosure. When I pulled one drive, it would allow booting from the single drive in the enclosure. I had the jumpers set for 'individual' drives so I could use two different size (and brand) drives. I gave up after several calls to OWC to try to get it to be able to boot from both drives. I then got a ≈ $60 single drive enclosure from Cool Drive to house my HD. I will gladly deal with currently two seperate external enclosures (160 GB & 250GB) and maybe add a third (500GB+) if I want more storage.
Dave

The manufacturer that creates the Mac Pro hard drive enclosure

I want to purchase another hard drive enclosure and I know there are a few companies that manufacture drives resembling the Mac Pro. Rosewell and Coolgear...but which one does the massive storage version with 5 drives on RAID with option of firewire 800 or SATA output? Its almost half the size of the Mac Pro.
I've been googling this one for awhile and I remember seeing it somewhere.

Hi Erik,
Here they are from Gtech called Gspeed:
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-SPEED.cfm
I saw one at buffalo sites, it comes with 4 drive enclosure.
But it doesn't look like macpro shape at all.
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/external-drives/drivestation/
Good Luck

Where can I buy a larger hard drive for my late 2008, 15" macbook pro? From reviewing questions and answers on the support community it would appear that having Apple remove the old and install the new hard drive is recommended. But how/where?

Where can I buy a larger hard drive for my late 2008, 15" macbook pro? From reviewing questions and answers on the support community it would appear that having Apple remove the old and install the new hard drive is recommended. But how/where?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You can install the new hard disk yourself if you want to. You just need a 2'5" SATA II hard drive, which is compatible with your MacBook Pro. You can buy one at OWC > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/ You can filter hard drives by computer, so press a "Click to view all...", choose your computer in the sidebar and it will give you the compatible hard drives.
There are different brands for the MacBook Pro. The most recommended are HGST and Seagate, which have good reputation. A 7200 rpm hard drive will give you extra performance

Unstable firewire hard drives performance in 220 volts countries

Over the years, I often travel back and forth to the US, Asia and Europe with my MacBook Pro and external firewire hard drives, which were purchased in the USA. While in Europe or Asia, which generally runs on ~220 volts, I've had several experiences whenever I daisy chained more than 1 external firewire hard drive to my laptop, either the connection was very unstable, resulting in drives randomly unmounting; or my current dilemma where the 2nd drive is not mounting at all. I never experience these issues at all while I'm in the US. My guess is that the difference in voltage (110 vs. 220) or cycles (60 Hz vs. 50 Hz) is affecting the drives somehow. I have experienced this with G-drives, and the Newertech Voyager Q and Wiebetech Traydock which are well built, reliable enclosures. I pair the enclosures with Seagate or Hitachi drives. All the enclosures' AC adapters specifically state that they're rated for 100-240 volts. I thought hooking all my drives to a 2000 watt voltage transformer would solve the problem but it didn't. Using 1 firewire drive is not a problem, but the daisy chaining seems problematic. The dilemma is I MUST daisy chain the drives for backup purposes and just for general data wrangling. Plus my MacBook Pro only has 1 firewire port. My laptop and firewire port is not the problem, as I've upgraded several times over the years.
My questions are:
1. Has anyone else ever experienced USA drives acting funky in 220 volts countries?
2. Anyone have an idea for a solution to this problem?
Thanks so much,
HL
PS. On perhaps a related note, when I plug my MacBook Pro into a 220 volts outlet and lay my wrists below the keyboard, there is a current or vibration that I do not feel when I'm in the US.

There is no difference in the power delivered to the computer or the drives, it's 12-15v wherever you are, and it's DC so there are no cycles, I think this is not the right tree you're barking up.

SATA to Firewire hard drive enclosure recommendations?

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