Firewire or USB HDD Caddy

Monday, April 25, 2005 by Essencay | Discussion: PC Hardware

http://www.cooldrives.com/worlds-smallest-usb-2-mini-removable-enclosure-for-two-ide-drives.html or http://www.cooldrives.com/firen.html There's a whole gaggle of choices for Firewire, not so much for USB. Which setup, USB or Firewire would you go with? I'm looking at one of the 2-bay units to put two drives in. One for backing up my C: partition and one for backing up my music (I've decided I really don't want to go through ripping all my CD's again if I lose the drive that has my music on it). Thanks
8 Reply 12 Referrals
Weaksid
Reply #1 Monday, April 25, 2005 4:38 AM
This is what I got -> http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817155212

It's nice

craeonics
Reply #2 Monday, April 25, 2005 5:15 AM
FireWire is faster, less cpu intensive, USB is more practical.

To quote Weaksid:

"This is what I got -> http://www.techsolo.com/product/external_storage/TMR_3550/index.php

It's nice [no-smiley]"

...though I still have doubts about the strength and durability of the drive connectors. I suspect these things wear fast.

Weaksid
Reply #3 Monday, April 25, 2005 5:37 AM
"drive connectors" you talking about the ide cable inside? Or the wires you plug in the back and then to the computer?

craeonics
Reply #4 Monday, April 25, 2005 6:22 AM
The IDE-cables. They tend to use shortened versions of the same cables used in computers, but it takes quite a bit of force to disconnect those, so the risk of tearing them apart is bigger than what is comfortable to me.

Chris TH
Reply #5 Monday, April 25, 2005 6:31 AM
The Maxtor 'One Touch' has both

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.6adb6b8313633595062e6be791346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Products/External%20Hard%20Drives

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

Weaksid
Reply #6 Monday, April 25, 2005 7:01 AM
The Maxtor One Touch would be one of those externals that I wouldn't take around with me. It was mainly made to sit on your desk for backups
It's always connected and stays in one spot.

Essencay
Reply #7 Monday, April 25, 2005 12:49 PM
Thanks for all the info....most likely go with firewire. Still gonna get one that handles two drives, since there won't be much swapping or traveling with it going on...just having the convenience to swap drives out when needed. Thought about an external at first, but I tend to swap one of my drives out of my case every couple of years....so why waste it. I got two 80gigs....recently swapped for two 120gigs...just waiting for a new home

dissimuloorator
Reply #8 Monday, April 25, 2005 1:41 PM
The Thing to do is go with the combo cases, and roll your own. With the Firewire option you can avoid issues when burning stuff through a USB Burner from a USB Drive, or when tranferring info from one drive to another. Not having to Cross the usb buss twice. Coming and Going. But Cross through USB to 1394 (firewire is trademarked by apple). So pulling things off 1394 to USB is quicker as well, pull from a 1394 enabled camera or DV device and go into USB Drive. Also added benefit, is say you go to a friends home, and want to move something LARGE, and he only has USB 2.0.. No Firewire..you're SOL, with a single architecture, but handy dandy good to go with a dual case. I have several external devices and all but 2 are dual ( they would have been dual but they were my first devices and I had to learn...)

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