[BigFatDuck]

i'm looking for an external drive for the powerbook as i've started playing with video and RAW image files and it's internal 80gigger is no longer sufficient. it looks like 250 gigs is the sweet spot for capacity and value. i've been looking on Lacie's website trying to decide which drive to get but since i have no experience i'd like to get some input. i'm leaning toward the 250 gig firewire (400) drive (sexy porche design) for $199 or for $50 more they have the triple interface drive including firewire 800 for $50 more, both are 7200rpm. the powerbook has all 3 ports available so it almost sounds convenient to have the options, though i haven't used my firewire 800 port even once so i don't think i would miss it being occupied by the firewire 400 drive using the 400 -> 800 cable.
my main question is regarding transfer speed. am i going to notice a significant difference in performance between using firewire 400 and 800 on an external drive? as mentioned i will be importing digital video and plenty of music and pictures. the specs say the 800 offers twice the transfer speed and 50% faster sustained speed. that seems like a lot, is it a big difference?
and a final request, if anyone knows of a decent online retailer who offers either of these drives at a good price let me know.... looking to buy in the next day or so.

[aphayton]

You will see a significant speed difference between the 400 and 800. If you have an 800 port then use it for the 800 drive. If you only have a 400 port then a 400-800 cable won't increase the speed as it is only a 400 port.

[bjewett]

I have the LaCie 250 (if memory right, have 4 drives now) that I hook up via a firewire hub to my Ti Powerbook 800. Works great. I'd get the triple interface if only for future 800 use with a machine that can handle it. Obviously I only have the IEEE1394a/400 interface on my TiBook, so I'm not going to get anything out of the faster interface right now.
Other comment: LaCie d2 drives are nice - very happy working with video with these drives. Have had some issues with other drive make while working in Final Cut. Also: for large data transfers between multiple external drives, I've found a speedup if I put one (or more) on the firewire hub plugged into the powerbook, and the target disk connected through the card slot using a PCMCIA firewire interface, vs just having it all on the same hub. This seems obvious enough, but I had been told by an Apple guy that it wouldn't make a difference; it does.
Brian

[deniro]

I bought an external Seagate because it is quiet, reliable and has a 5-year warranty. I put the drive in a MacAlly enclosure.

[dougster]

I've been pleased with the LaCie d2 Triple Interface HD. I was also surprised that 'all' the cables came boxed with it. If you have the time email Joe McNeeley (joem @clubmac) and see what price he can give you, or what models might be on sale from ClubMac. Don't think he works weekends though. Its free info /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[rockinphotog]

I just got the Lacie 500GB big disk extreme. It's very nice. If I hadn't bought the Lacie I would have gotten one of the Mercury Extreme's from OWC.
Get the D2, not the Porsche design. Also, you will save money by not getting the triple interface. if you have FW400 or 800? I see no point in having USB 2.0.

[Scoot65]

In reply to:

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Get the D2, not the Porsche design

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I'm also looking to get an external HD.
I'd been told that the D2 ones are good to get, but I'm curious as to why you say not to get the Porsche design.
thanks...

[rockinphotog]

I could be wrong, but I have heard that there were failures with the porsche drives and that they have been discontinued.

[Scoot65]

Thanks for the info, just curious.
The D2 HD will probably be my next purchase.
Thanks again.

[RichL]

I have 4 (count 'em) external drives...all from OWC.
OWC
I bought the first one from them, then started buying the cases and looking for sales on the drives.
I now have 4 Maxtor 250 GB bare External drives in OWC cases.
In some cases I bought the drives for less than $100 at CompUSA and other places.
It's very easy to stick a drive in on of these cases.
The cases I bought have USB 2 AND FW 400, and one is just FW 400.
They all work VERY well...no issues...
RichL

[BigFatDuck]

in case anyone was interested, i receieved my Lacie d2 triple interface 250gig today and i've had a few hours to play around with it. first of all i was pleasantly surprised by it's appearance, from the pictures on their website i thought the casing was some kind of off-white plastic and i'm glad it's actually a light grey METAL textured case (and quite sturdy even on it's side on the included stand). the drive comes formatted for mac, and that was a surprise to me as well, so all i had to do was plug it in and it was ready to use. and it comes with all the cables you could need with it's choice of connection types. transfered my itunes library (28.8 gigs) to it in less than 19 minutes connected via firewire 800 and using itunes actually seems faster than it did before, perhaps due to the higher rpm HD (7200 vs 5400). very happy with my purchase.
as for the porche design ones- the big drawback for me was the lack of firewire 800 but it's also nice to know that if i need to i can choose from 3 other connection options in the future with the triple interface d2 drive.

[Scoot65]

I for one, am interested to hear your view!
Seems you're pretty pleased with the d2 HD.
I'm definitely going to get one. I think the 160GB HD will do me.
Thanks for the update.

[jasongins]

I caught a sale at Best Buy for a Western Digital 160gb bare drive with 8mb cache in a retail box for $40 after rebates. I then bought from Newegg.com a Bytecc external 3.5" metal enclosure with firewire 400 and USB 2.0 for about $40 plus shipping. It was easy to assemble, seems to work well, and was under $100 in total. At the time I did this, it was less than half the price of buying one already made up and with more space. However, I since have not seen such an aggressive sale on hard drives - mostly 120gb for around $50 after rebates - but still cheap enough to make a good argument for building your own external drive.

[daltedw]

Is there a difference in speed between working with files on an external as apposed to an internal HD? And does the file size matter (working with DV as apposed to iTunes)? Does the cache on the external effect its performance?