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HDD External Cases (1394 & USB)

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 8:54 pm
by Spazmogen
any one have any experience with these?

I'm looking at an enclosure for a 3.5" drive. It's got a built in fan, comes with power supply and has BOTH USB 2.0 & firewire 1384 connectors.

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I think my 350w Enermax supply may be running at capacity.
4 HDD's, 2 optical drives, numerous PCI cards and 4 80mm fans (2 more in the PS unit). P3 1ghz, 640mb PC133.

One of the drives seems to stall out (no error though) when I try and write something from the optical drive on the same IDE cable.

I figured I can lessen the load on the PSU by going with an external drive and unhooking a fan or two.

What kind of transfer speed do you get with USB 2.0? (I know 480, but how does that relate to say ATA100 speeds?)

The product link. $59.99 CDn after $10 MIR. lets not get get into a debate about MIR's.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:12 pm
by dodecahedron
would'nt it turn out cheaper to buy a stronger power supply?
better for system stabiliity too!
(unless you want an external HDD for other reasons too)

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:27 pm
by Spazmogen
I was looking at a 600w PSU as well. $49.99 after MIR.

The external case would be nice so I can take it to work or to friends' houses when I need to work on their systems.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:33 pm
by cfitz
Your idea to buy a dual interface enclosure is a good one. USB 2.0 gives you better compatibility (you can find a USB 2.0 port on most any newer computer) and FireWire gives you better performance. With both interfaces you can choose the best for each situation you encounter.

Along those lines, do yourself a favor and buy a FireWire card for your home computer. Despite USB 2.0's theoretically higher maximum transfer rate (480 Mb/s versus 400 Mb/s), FireWire easily trounces USB 2.0 in real life.

I the following Eurocom combo enclosue that I bought from Dealsonic:

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Here are the transfer rates as measure by Sandra 2004.8.9.131:

Code: Select all
+---------------+----------------------------------+-----------------------+
|               |                                  |                       |
|               |        Pentium III  1 GHz        |    Pentium 4  3 GHz   |
|               |                                  |                       |
|               +----------+---------+-------------+---------+-------------|
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
|               |   USB A  |  USB B  |  FireWire   |   USB   |  FireWire   |
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
|---------------+----------+---------+-------------+---------+-------------|
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
| Overall  MB/s |    19    |    15   |     30      |    25   |      31     |
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
|---------------+----------+---------+-------------+---------+-------------|
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
| Read MB/s     |    21    |    15   |     35      |    29   |      36     |
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
|---------------+----------+---------+-------------+---------+-------------|
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
| Write MB/s    |    18    |    15   |     25      |    26   |      30     |
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
|---------------+----------+---------+-------------+---------+-------------|
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
| Access ms     |    17    |    10   |     12      |    21   |      12     |
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
|---------------+----------+---------+-------------+---------+-------------|
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
|  CPU %        |     2    |    24   |      0      |    10   |       0     |
|               |          |         |             |         |             |
+---------------+----------+---------+-------------+---------+-------------+


Pentium III specs:
Windows 2000
USB A = Adaptec ADA-3100B USB 2.0 adapter, NEC chipset
USB B = Generic USB 2.0 adapter, VIA chipset
FireWire = I/O Flex PFW410 FireWire adapter, VIA chipset

Pentium 4 specs:
XP Pro
USB = Abit IC7-G integrated
FireWire = Abit IC7-G integrated

As you can see, FireWire really outperforms USB, both in terms of realized transfer rates (more than twice as fast in some cases) and resource utilization. You can also see that the performance you get from USB varies greatly depending on the adapter you use, but FireWire is pretty consistent.

cfitz

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:47 pm
by Spazmogen
Thanks cfitz.

I have a dual USB 2.0/1394 firewire PCI card in my system (ebay is wonderful).

I just wasn't sure which way to hook it up. The only thing that uses firewire here so far is my miniDV camcorder.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:52 pm
by cfitz
You're welcome.

cfitz

PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 4:41 am
by bill
Hi Spazmogen,

The thread is a couple of weeks old but if you haven't committed yet this might help you out for a few dollars more- Acom 80 gig

http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... pfp=BROWSE

I've had the 40gig model for about a year and it has worked just fine.