Hi Johan - acquired 2 new drives myself recently and about to get another. It's too bad there aren't any Canada Computers in LaSalle, but you can order from them online. I have one about 15 minutes away, so I just drive there. Their prices are excellent - as good as or better than any online retailers in Canada and for me, without any shipping, generally the cheapest. I've gotten RAM from them too. Not all their products are available online; if there is a shopping cart icon they are - if not, they're not. TDDirect is another online supplier that has good prices and who I've dealt with.
I recommend the build-your-own option - that way you get a nice long warranty on the drive itself and generally it's cheaper. It's also ridiculously easy; if you have a screw driver and can undo 4 screws, attach two cables and attach the drive to the drive sled with another 4 screws and then pop it back in the case and replace those 4 original screws, you're good to go. A 5 year-old could do it. And generally they come with instructions.
And if you are considering the already-assembled option, do NOT get a WD My Book - too many problems with Macs.
So - either or Western Digital (3 year warranty) or Seagate (5 year warranty) would be what I'd recommend and one note here: the Seagate 7200.12 drives should be avoided as they seem to have had a higher than average failure rate and at one point not long ago, there were issues with Macs. (not sure if those were resolved or not) I usually have gone with Seagate in the past because they had good reviews, a 5 year warranty and I've never had one fail, but I've seen more complaints about them than usual lately and have opted for the WD drives instead. Hitachi is another possibility with reviews that are similar to the WD. For this third drive I'm about to get, I may opt for the Seagate again.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?d...;cid=HD.443.877http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?d...;cid=HD.443.877http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?d...;cid=HD.443.877Some reviews to help the decision process:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136073 (this is the drive I got - the somewhat less favorable reviews at NewEgg for the Seagates made me leery)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRevie...N82E16822148288And now, on to something to put it into. I used to only recommend the Oxford chipset FW drives, but that recommendation is apparently not so valid as it was in the early days of FW. See Randy Singer's post here:
http://www.macusersforum.com/index.php?showtopic=19256Not a lot of choice on the FW front in Canada - I'd go with the Vantec NexStar, which gets good reviews (I have a USB 2.0 only 2.5" drive enclosure of theirs which is fine) - not so keen on the Eagle enclosure as they don't get very good reviews at NewEgg and I'm not sure if there is an SATA FW one anyway. No sense buying an IDE drive these days - if you can find one - they're not the way of the future.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?d...amp;cid=516.700NewEgg reviews of Vantec enclosureI just noticed that NewEgg is once again carrying the Rosewill drive enclosures that have FW (I think Rosewill stopped making them for a bit) - and they have one that is now eSATA etc. that looks just like my IDE FW/USB 2.0 enclosure (looks like a little G5 in design). It's not cheap at $79, but man, those are nice enclosures. Can't find it anywhere in Canada and NewEgg doesn't ship here.
Oh well.
And while it may be tempting to get a drive from Other World because they do ship to Canada, dealing with UPS, who almost everyone uses for international shipments is a costly NIGHTMARE. They charge
absurd brokerage fees. If OWC is willing to send it via the good old post office, then ok. Not sure about FedEx.
I certainly miss NewEgg's wonderful selection and prices...too bad we can't convince them to ship north of the border!
