$150 external harddrive recommandations?

[violent]

alright, the crap is piling up on my laptop hardrive like there is no tomorrow, i watch that harddrive go from a healthy 33gb, to a 25 to a 20, and now finally an anorexic 16gb. and the problem is, it is all crap that i pretty much need, videos, photos, music, etc. and with a 5400 rpm notebook harddrive, that thing is having a hard time turning over with so much crap, it takes a noticeable ammount of time just to start adobe reader.
so i got m tax refund, i figure i gotta about $150 to blow on an external harddrive. now i want to get a firewire one, because this drive will actually be plugged into my laptop most of the time and be used just like a regular harddrive, not a backup only drive (meaning watching movies directly off it, so i dont want to deal with USB). does anyone have any recommandations?

i figure i should go for atleast 120gb and above, but no maxtor or western digital ones ever fall within my price range for that size. thanks for any input.

i was also wondering if any knows if there is a sort of external casing to convert internal harddrives to external usb+firewire ones. i've only seen usb only ones. but i was wondering if there are any usb+firewire external housings. would getting a cheaper/bigger internal hd and a external enclosure be better than getting a smaller external hd? will an internal hd be stable in an external enclosure (with regards to voltage and temp)?

thanks very much for everyone's time/patience in advance.

-george

 

[tpman]

I just found a 250 gig at comp usa for $80. You should be able to find a usb/firewire case for about $35-40. You should still have enough left over for dinner and a beer! The deals are out there, you just have to look. Slickdeals.net is a good one to look at ever once in a while.

 

[micker377]

Why not just replace the hard drive in the computer? Seems strange to carry a laptop AND an external drive around. If you go external, definitely get Firewire - much faster.

 

[beagle187]

I have a bytecc enclosure that has USB 2.0 and Firewire ports on it. I installed a Western Digital 160GB harddrive inside. I got the 7200 RPM with an 8MB buffer on the drive. It is lightning fast as long as you have USB 2.0 on your laptop. I have never had a problem from it.

 

[violent]

wow, that is amazing, i did pretty much the same thing. i just bought this 160Gb WD hd from bestbuy on monday cause it was on sale for $40 after rebates, and i bought this bytecc case on monday morning, the case came yesterday (i'm in so cal), i put it all together no problem, the only thing now is that the case came only with a 6-pin to 6-pin cable, but i have a 4-pin on my laptop, so i gotta go get one of those from bestbuy. but it seems to power up fine, and the harddrive was recongized by usb, i just didn't initialize it, because i want it to run thru firewire.

one question i had after testing it is that, once i safely remove it from winxp using the "safely remove...", is it safe to just power off the harddrive from the switch on the back of the case? it seems to still be "on", as it seems to still be humming slightly, don't know if it is spinning or not, i don't think it is, as there is no more vibrations. thanks.

-george

 

[beagle187]

i never use the safely remove. I just turn the drive off or just unplug it. USB 2.0 and Firewire are hot swappable in XP.
The first time i booted up my drive and connect it to my computer, i had to right click on My Computer, go to Manage, then go to Disk Managment and format the drive and give it a label. From then on, i just connect it to my computer and it appears as another drive.

 

[violent]

well, had to RMA the case i got yesterday today. it didn't break down or anything, just that i found out that the Firewire+USB had the dreaded Prolific PL3507 chipset (there is even a post about it in this forum), from what i read around the net, the chipset is a ticking time bomb, it will randomly corupt the harddrive that it controls, even if you take care to disconnect the drive properly and everything. checking back on the byteccusa website, i now realized that only the firewire only version of that case carry the oxford 911 chipset. so i figured i had to dump it. i then reorder this case, which has a oxford 911 chip for firewire and cypress for usb. i was going order the one that below ambient suggested, but it turned out that one also had the prolific chipset, dont wanna mess with that. guess i learned my lesson, looke better before i hit the complete order button, cost me $6 in restocking fee to learn my lesson.