What external hard drive enclosure(s) do you use?

[GordonFreeman]

And what others do you know that are good? (for Pro Tools)
This thread could be used to create a list, organized by price level and specs.

Maybe it could be turned into a sticky, eventually :)

================================================== ==========================================
List:

- OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro™ Storage Solutions (2 people):
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firew...W800_FW400_USB

- MacPower
http://www.macpower.com.tw/products/hdd3/

- Lacie Porsche and D2 (compatible - but failures reported)
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11062
http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Porsche-.../dp/B000H94W4O

[joeydego]

this is my drive: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firew...W800_FW400_USB
MANY drives here for less than 200 bucks, up to PT specs.

[GordonFreeman]

Thanks joey! I added another one too (one of the ones I use)

Let's keep it rolling, people!

[Matt Darcy]

I use Lacie external Firewire disks

I have some F.A Porche Disks which have now been discontinued I believe
http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Porsche-.../dp/B000H94W4O

they are excellent very very very good quality,

I also use the replacement models

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11062

These are also very good.

There is a mini-firewire version of the FA Porche disks, which I used to use for "on the go" they are slightly slower but excellent excellent quality.

[CLee]

Matt, I'm glad you have had luck with LaCie. 4 out of 5 LaCie drives we had died (2 were Porche). 3 had dead firewire bridges, so the drive itself was salvaged. Never again will I buy from them.

OWC/MacSales all the way for us.

[Matt Darcy]

That ratio is the exact opposite of mine, and quite worrying,

I've had 4 driver (2 F A Porche, 2 of the new ones) and they have all been spot on, I've also had two of the F A Porche smaller firewire laptop drives and all of them have been great.

I'm alarmed by the number and difference of the failures you've had.

I feel better backing these disks up, but still worrying the level of failure you've had.

[CLee]

If you do a DUC search I think you'll find that I'm not the only one with this opinion.

In our case we use fibre drives as our audio, so the firewire failures were nightly backup drives. So doing a new archive saved us in those situations. But like I said in all but one case the drive was totally functional. It was the enclosure that failed.

[sndgeek]

Originally Posted by CLee

Matt, I'm glad you have had luck with LaCie. 4 out of 5 LaCie drives we had died (2 were Porche). 3 had dead firewire bridges, so the drive itself was salvaged. Never again will I buy from them.

OWC/MacSales all the way for us.

How funny, our personal experience has been exactly opposite. LaCie have been workhorses for us for many years, whereas OWC/Macsales enclosures fail within 6 months. Not isolated incidents, we have had over a dozen LaCies and 6 OWC's. Truthfully though, I have never seen an enclosure of any make last more than 3 yrs in regular rotation. I guess this falls under the 'certain brands are better' argument (i.e. hard drives, flash drives, RAM, etc).

That said, enclosures are usually the weakest link in any external firewire situation. Warranty spells it out -- 1 yr limited on the enclosure vs. 3-5 yrs on the hard drives.

This year we started purchasing drives and enclosures separately -- drives are usually WD and enclosures are Rocstor. No more power bricks! Rocster has a 2 yr warranty on their enclosures as well.

[CLee]

Your mileage may vary...

I was just passing along my experience, I have no reason not to believe your different experience.

The only enclosure I have ever had fail from OWC was within a few hours of turning it on (infant failure?).

That said it would be nice to easily find drive enclosures with high quality internal power supplies and fans. I have very old SCSI drives (over 10 yrs old) that are noisy as h**l, but still work!

[GordonFreeman]

Is this helpful enough to turn into a sticky?