Prolific PL3507 USB2.0/Firewire enclosure...complete garbage

[HeyZeus]

here's a link that will help explain my situation:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/31408/

basically, I bought this enclosure because it was cheap and had what I wanted (Firewire) plus it was very very portable (small in size plus no giant power adapter). What a mistake. Long story short, I went through two different enclosures (exchanged then finally just returned at CompUSA), both of the created the same problem.

They corrupted my hard drives (in Windows XP). I tried them on multiple computers, with multiple hard drives, multiple times, and was able to successfully replicate the problem each time, simply by using the enclosure. The "Safely Remove Hardware" I thought was the issue (even though the drives were optimized for quick removal). No. The corruptions occured spontaneously, usually after restarting the computer or stopping the device and powering it down.

What a waste. This chipset is horrible. I even tried several versions of upgraded firmware and the same thing happened over and over. The first time it happened was a complete disaster as I was using my main 250GB Hitachi with all my personal documents, videos, pictures, etc... (had to use data recovery software). I learned my lesson and didn't put more than a few hundred megabytes on the hard drives before seeing if they would fail (keep in mind I used many essentially new hard drives with nothing valuable on them).

Reason why I got a new enclosure is because my old one kept giving me "Delayed Write Failed" errors, something fortunatley this enclosure did not. Too bad it was garbage though, I liked it's design. I'm off to try the Oxford 911 chipset or whatever.

Can anyone recommend to me an good Firewire enclosures that are small and preferable even USB2.0? Thanks!

 

[micker377]

After reading your post, I just turned on my firewirs external drive (Metal Gear Box - USB2 and Firewire). It's been turned off for a week. Running tests, becauseit got corrupted once. Lately, I only turn the power off when the computer is off or on standby. So far, so good!

 

[garebo]

If you want a firewire external you must stick with oxford 911. I believe there is a revision of oxford 911 out as well but as long as its oxford 911 you are fine. It could be that the newer revision of 911 is for drives larger than, say, 137 gig, not sure on that part.
Good luck.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[HeyZeus]

Yeah I found an Oxford 911 Bytecc enclosure which seems to be working just fine so far, although it is a bit bigger than my previous one.

 

[Jamied1]

HeyZeus wrote:

"Yeah I found an Oxford 911 Bytecc enclosure which seems to be working just fine so far, "

Are you talking about the ME-740F?

I just picked up this Bytecc enclosure after having problems with Bytecc's USB/FW one that used the Prolific chipset. My ME-740F seems to be working fine, but I was disheartened to find out that it's been discontinued and that Bytecc apparently has no plans to replace it with a similar firewire (Oxford 911) enclosure.

J.

 

[garebo]

Doesnt matter, there are quite a few out there with the oxford chipset in them as the oxford chipset is not only the best, but its in most of those boxes we buy anyway.
So not to worry.
But if you see a box you want to call or contact support and make sure it has the oxford chipset.
By the way, i heard somewhere this is an updated or upgraded oxford chipset out there, dont know what its labelled, such as oxford 2 (think thats what i heard).



Good advice + great people = tek-tips