external HD recommendation

[Bill-R]

Hey everybody!

It has been a long time since I have been here.  I have had a bit of a struggle in life and my life has almost fallen apart completely.  At this time I am out of work and trying like crazy to find a new job and make money at the same time.  My main field is "Pro Audio" I am a sound engineer.  I have a good friend that is a DJ and he wants me to start doing second bookings for him, which is something that up until now I have not had much interest in. (OK I am getting to the point of my post)  Most of his music is on hard drives and I will need to get one for my iBook. (will upgrade the iBook to a faster better machine as money allows)  I have firewire on my ibook and would like a recommendation for a good stable yet fast external hard drive.  My buddy uses lacie rack mountable drives which I like but would like to compare them to others.  He also feels that staying with the faster G4 Powerbooks is better than going with a Macbook Pro.


Anybody out there have any advice for me. I will take advice on Hard drives, Powerbooks and advice on this type of business.


Thanks!

Bill

[chriskleeman]

Hey Bill!

Sorry to hear that life has thrown you a curve ball or two, but nice to see you lurking around!You could start here: Firewire enclosures

My thinking at this point is to go for a SATA enclosure and drive, as ATA drives are beginning to fade into the sunset, and the SATA drives are much faster anyway. But, this is a good place to start looking, happy hunting! And I know that there will be more posts following with perhaps more specific recommendations!

Best,

Chris K

[Paddy]

Bill - to start with the last big first...I have no idea why anyone would advise staying with the Powerbooks at this point in time, if considering spending money on a "new" machine. Aside from the obvious - they're cheaper - they are not going to have much longevity IF you want to keep a current OS installed. OS 10.6 will not work on a non-Intel machine. While 10.5 versions may be available in parallel for a while, don't count on it for long. Apple will not continue to develop for the PowerPC.

But aside from that rather important (in my book) issue, there are many advantages to the MacBook Pros. Faster processors, bigger HDs, more RAM, stunning screens etc., etc. Downside...they will cost you more than an old Powerbook.

Back to the HD issue. I've always favored buying my HD and the enclosure separately - both because it is usually cheaper and I usually get a HD with a 5-year warranty. Most pre-assembled HDs have shorter warranties. Enclosures aren't usually what fails - HDs are.

Get a good enclosure with both Firewire and USB 2.0 (for forward compatibility) and a nice Seagate 7200 RPM SATA drive with a 5 year warranty.

A couple of options for enclosures:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817392018 (got a Vantec enclosure very similar to this for my aunt recently. Also have a Vantec 2.5" enclosure)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817182123 (I have a Rosewill enclosure - earlier version for ATA drives - and love it. VERY sturdy and matches my G5 )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148288

[krissel]

Just some additional info regarding connections, etc.   The PPC Macs are not universally supported in USB booting of OS X.  You may not think about having a system on the external but if you don't otherwise have a backup, I'd partition the external and at least put a backup of your laptop on it. The music can go on another partition. That would suggest a FW enabled external case if you are to keep using an iBook. Or test a USB case for boot and return it if it doesn't work.

However if you get a MacBook it can boot from USB which would open up more cases as possibilities.  eSATA is not at this time easily bootable (if at all) but I would suspect that it will be in the future as more case makers develop drivers. It is faster than USB 2 or FW 800 and if used with a Mac with eSATA port would be the speediest. Firmtek has a hub that promises to be bootable with X but the product is not yet available.

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-spyder/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1560

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=354849

As to drives, most of the major name drives like Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital are pretty reliable.  There are some 'Enterprise" level drives which are supposed to be hardier and faster.  Most sites list the specs which will tell you the rpm, latency, cache, and number of disks.  This can give you an idea of overall speed. Also try to read the reviews that customers post on some of those sites and check the warranties.

[Jack W]

I would go with Paddy's recommendations:

Seagate drive w/5-yr warranty as per Paddy
(I've had excellent luck with Seagate drives and they stand behind their warranties)

And an eclosure with FW 400, eSata and USB 2 as per Paddy

This gives the the best of all worlds.
You can use the FW connection for booting from external.
You can use the eSata for normal connectivity for the fastest speed.

- Jack

[MamaMoose]

One quick comment. eSATA drives are not much use if you ave to boot from them (system backup). Your best bet is a FireWire 800 drive. If possible get one that is externally powered so minimize the drain on the system. I just do not understand the comment your buddy made, "He also feels that staying with the faster G4 Powerbooks is better than going with a Macbook Pro. The MacBook Pro is much faster than the G4 powerbooks.

Also, since you are going to lug equipment around to various gigs, I would recommend a LaCie portable drive. It has an orange rubber-like cover that helps in making it ruggedized.

MamaMoose

[Bill-R]

Thanks everybody, this is all very good information. I am going to go through and decide what I am going to do.  I agree with those of you that wonder why any body would go with a G4 PowerBook when the MacBook Pro is such an awesome machine.  I think that part of it is his application situation.  He has a lot of software that he will have to upgrade and I think some of his "scrubber" apps will not go into leopard. I think I will probably upgrade to a faster Powerbook for the time being and then eventually move on to a Macbook Pro but money is my biggest enemy right now.


Thanks again!

Bill