External Hard Drive enclosures
 

I am looking for a externall hard drive enclosure for a harddrive that I just bought. I want if possible to have both Firewire 800 and USB 2.0 connectivty because I have both a Powerbook and a PC.

Does anybody know of any trusted brands to look for and possible places to buy them?

Also which of the two, Firewire 400 or USB 2.0 offer better connectivity?

I forgot to say that I would like it to be powered by either USB or Firewire.

Thanks

Im sure some can chime in with actual names of enclosures, but about the only thing I know about the ones that are dual is that they are *expensive*.

I believe Firewire is the slightly faster choice, although USB 2.0 is supported on more devices. I went with USB because it was cheaper and works just fine.

It seems like you bought one from your post where did you buy yours, cause I just came across one that is aluminum at tiger direct which fits 2.5 inch drives for 20 dollars, and wanted someones opinon on it as well

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...672&CatId=1204

Looks fine. I dont remember where I got mine, but it was probably NewEgg. Mine fits 3.5" drives.

That looks fine. Aluminum is a good thing to have because it conducts the heat away. When you are locking a drive in an enclosure with no cooling like that, aluminum is a ver good thing.

Get a Vantec combo enclosure from TigerDirect.com. I use it with Firewire because I can chain that and my other combo external drive together to connect to my laptop (one 4-pin port).

I don't really know of any trusted brands, but I bought a plumax enclosure from dealsonic http://www.dealsonic.com/exen.html and it seems to work well. I've noticed that dealsonic does have a better selection/price then newegg does on the external enclosures.

Other than that info, the only other thing I can offer you is this review of a hd enclosure (not too many of them from what I've read) http://www.dansdata.com/sntboxes.htm
Hope that this info helps you out.

As a long time Mac user, one of the more solid companies I've dealt with is OtherWorld Computer (www.macsales.com). They make Firewire enclosures. I also highly recommend their RAM. I just bought one of their enclosures as a replacement enclosure for a LaCie external firewire disk which died (drive was fine, case died). Been great so far. Only thing is, the blue power light is piercing. I had to cover it up.

PS. Definitely get Firewire. It's just better technology for the task at hand.