External Firewire 400 Enclosure for 3.5" Hard Drive

[Will Rickards]

I see this deal on a 160GB seagate drive at best buy for $80 After Rebate. So I figure great, just use it for backup with an external enclosure. So I read through the SF threads and check out the enclosures... all like $100 or more. Is this the cost for enclosures? I just need one to do firewire 400. USB2 would be nice but isn't necessary. Am I insane to expect this to be like $25?

Looking on newegg, I'm not insane for usb2 ones, but for firewire ones it is min $40.

Advice?

 

[Handruin]

I see external HD cases at bensbargains regularly. There was one listed a couple days ago here for $30 USD. I don't know if it is any good, but it's firewire and USB 2.

 

[Handruin]

Also found this external case at compusa for $35 after rebate...again, not sure if it is any good.

 

[MaxBurn]

I have been doing some research on this recently after getting a crappy enclosure. There are a lot of cheap enclosures out there now. I posted this on SR and I think it's worth repeating:

What I have gathered:
Seems that the Oxford 911 firewire chip is the best you can get for the firewire portion and is usually coupled with a Cypress or NEC chipset for the USB2 interface. Saw some positive comments on the Cypress chipset. Oxford 922 that does USB2 and Firewire in one chip might be a good bet too, havn't seen an enclosure with it yet though.

I have two 2.5" laptop drive enclosures. My good one is Oxford 911 / Cypress ISD300A1 and simply works everywhere I put it with no weird behavior. I got another super cheap USB2 only enclosure where the chip wasn't even marked and it works OK in windows but the Ghost boot floppy doesn't even see it, so known major chipsets have their benefits. I just got a 3.5" enclosure with the Ali M5641 chipset and had nothing but problems with it disconnecting with "delayed file write failed" messages and just disapearing from the computer.

So because you are looking for good firewire 400 (not the new 800) I would suggest that the enclosure you are looking for should be built around the Oxford 911 chipset.

I wound up getting this one, should get here wednesday or so:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-657&depa=0
Newegg item number N82E16817145657 if the link doesn't work

 

[mubs]

Maxurn's advice is right on the money. Don't touch anything that's not Oxford for an external.

 

[Will Rickards]

That triumph looks good. And it is only $39 with shipping. I'll have to google to see if anybody has had issues with it.

I've googled on the compusa one and seems there are two different ones, one with upgradeable firmware and one without.

I was considering the bytecc ME-320U2F. Saw it at a couple stores. newegg and mwave. Around $45 with shipping. Its spec sheet says it has the 911 chipset for the firewire version but it seems to imply that the combo version does not? So now I think I'm going to pass.

The AMS looks real nice but pricey at $57.

What I've found is that the 5.25"/3.5" type enclosures seem to be cheaper than just the plain 3.5" enclosures. I thought it would be the other way around.

 

[MaxBurn]

Do you know the chipsets behind those triumph enclosures?

I did a quick google on the "bytecc ME-320U2F" enclosure and coudn't see what chip they are using for the USB portion. I think what they are trying to tell you is that the Oxford 911 only does the firewire part which is true.

 

[Will Rickards]

http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=p:10502069&kbid=1008
is the page for the triumph

It says oxford 911 for firewire and ali for usb 2.
The manufacturer page is either this one or this one. Neither seems to have information on the chipsets.

 

[Fushigi]

Apparently this one listed at BensBargains is $30 + S/H and has the Oxford 911 chipset.

 

[Will Rickards]

There must be like one or two actual enclosure companies because that looks awfully close to the bytecc model. I can't find the chipset information on the store site though.

 

[Will Rickards]

Trying to verify what has what chipset is driving me crazy!
triumph appears not to have two websites but also a third at www.triumphtech.com.

 

[MaxBurn]

Hmm, hopefully it's not the Ali chipset I ran into here:

http://www.storageforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4334

 

[Will Rickards]

I e-mailed pcmicrostore and will let you all know how it turns out.
They have two (1 & 2) models are virtually identical except one claims to have the oxford 911 chipset and Ali for the USB 2.0.

 

[Will Rickards]

From Triumph Tech

Hi Will:

I'll help you on the technical side of the 346s.

Standard production of the 346 use Prolific chip for both the USB2 and
FW400.
The last letters U2FL (USB2FWProLific) denote this
Some production (mainly in Europe) uses the ALI (M5621i) chip for USB2 and
Oxford (911 3.7/4.0) chip for FW400.
The last letters U2F (USB2FWOxofrd) denote this

The drive is mounted via screws from the bottom of the case.
The fan is a standard 40mm 5V fan mounted to the rear of the case.

Joe Hsu
Triumph Technology Corp.
www.triumphtech.com joe@triumphtech.com
3008 Lawrence Expressway, Santa Clara, CA 95051
TEL: 408-733-0218 FAX: 408-733-0216 AIM/ICQ:13871320

From PCmicro

Dear Customer,

Thank you for emailing us! Both item that you are looking at are made
by the same manufacture (Triumph), but the only different is in the
chipset.

TT-346U2F- uses Prolific chipset for both USB and Firewire
AM-346U2F - uses Ali for USB, and Oxford 911 for Firewire, which is the
best result for using with Mac system.

Currently, we don't have any other picture than the one that we have on
the website and the manufacture doesn't provide any more detail of the
picture either.

Hope this helps and if you have any questions feel free to email us.

Warren Liu
PC Micro Store
www.pcmicrostore.com
Toll Free: 866-686-1800
Tel: 626-965-6566 x 101
Fax: 626-965-7077

 

[Will Rickards]

So I'm ordering the AM-346U2F now and will let you all know how it goes.

 

[Piyono]

Oxford couldn't possibly be the only company that makes a decent 1394 bridge. Not anymore.

For what it's worth, I've had good experiences with enclosures from these companies so far:
DataOne FR-939
Bytecc ME-350, ME-320

The FR-939 and ME-350 have built-in power supplies, which I always look for in an external enclosure. Less to carry around.




Piyono

 

[Will Rickards]

Got it today, installed it with the Seagate 7200.7 160GB drive from Best Buy for $80 after rebate. All told it was $120 to obtain a USB 2.0/firewire 400 external drive.

It literally snaps together and not that well I might add.
As it is a 5.25" enclosure there is lots of air room in there over the top of the hard drive (not the side with the electronics)

I'm formatting it now through disk management, 149.05 GB, NTFS 4K clusters.
I have it hooked up through the firewire. No drivers used as Win2K recognized the device.

Seems quiet enough, I can't hear it over my PC.
This weekend or next I'll be moving all this stuff into the living room as we need the computer room for a nursery (baby #2 on the way - due in August).
That will be the real sound test. I may have to start turning my computer off when I'm not using it.

 

[Will Rickards]

Bah! Delayed write failed Delayed Write Failed Delayed Write Failed!
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