Mac Forum / General / Hardware / March 2008

In article
<magdalenabung-63B140.12343204032008@comcast.dca.giganews.com>,

I don't know about a local electronic store. They might have them.

You can order on line from various sources, often with next-day
delivery. Here are some links:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ne=5000&Ntt=enclosure+kit+fir
ewire&Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Popularity%7c1&N=6430&source=googlefirewire1207&gc
lid=CPiw7Je69JECFQPGsgodjXACxQ

http://www.fwdepot.com/thestore/default.php

And there are others. Just do a Google search on "Firewire enclosure"
and you will get lots of hits.

It must support a parallel ATA 3.5" drive, which means it needs its own
power supply (either built into the enclosure, or a "brick" or "wall
wart"). Beyond that, I can't recommend a specific brand as there is a
lot of regional variation.

My latest enclosures are "Ice Cube Pleiades", sometimes marketed under
the MacPower brand. They are upright aluminium enclosures with no fan,
so they rely on passive cooling. I'm not too keen on the upright profile
as there is a greater risk of knocking them over. They have been working
well for six months.

My previous one was a MantaRay, which has a plastic case, can sit on its
side, is stackable, and has a built-in fan (reasonably quiet) and power
supply. These aren't made any more.

Before that, I had a NewMotion enclosure. This was very unreliable
(spontaneously shutting down), which turned out to be due to a power
supply design problem, if I remember right. I sold it to a friend who
was able to get it working well by replacing a component.

I prefer to get Firewire enclosures which use an Oxford chipset for
their Firewire to ATA bridge, as they generally work well, but you might
not be able to identify this detail without opening up the enclosure.

I like to get enclosures which also have USB ports, for additional
flexibility and computer compatiblity, but this costs a fair amount more
than a simple Firewire-only enclosure (which is itself more expensive
than a USB-only enclosure).

Avoid USB-only because it won't be able to boot on an eMac, and will
have lower performance than Firewire (in the order of half the speed if
your eMac has USB 2.0, about fifty times slower if your eMac only has
USB 1.1).

If the enclosure is advertised as being Mac compatible, and especially
if it says it supports booting on a Mac, that is a good sign.

Firewire enclosures may be a little uncommon in a general consumer
electronics store - a dealer who specialises in Mac products or higher
performance products is more likely to stock them.