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.

[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.

[mixpro]

At the large studio where I'm working at they use G-Technology (G-Raid and G-Drive) drives for both Pro Tools and Avid (when they're not using Fiber Network drives). These seem to be built specifically for high throughput of large files. They're fan-less designs as well.
Another studio I work at uses Rocstor Rocpro drives for their systems.

The MAIN THING to look for is Oxford chipset in the Firewire bridge. Others will generally cause problems.

I'm currently using a Maxtor One Touch in FW400 mode as my main drive, which has the Oxford chipset. I plan on buying a G-Tech G-Drive for my personal system.

[mike59271]

I was wondering if someone can check out my specs and gimme their opinon here. Im running Pro Tools LE 8 on XP Pro and am thinking about getting new drives. My C drive is pretty old and Ive reformatted on it more times than id like to count. At any rate I would like to replace it because at the same time i need to get rid of my Fantom Green Drive 1TB USB External, so i figured id take care of both. What i need to know are 2 things,

a) is this drive good for my C drive?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320


b) Should i get 2 external drives (one for audio, one for VI's)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MEAQ7S1TB32M/


The reason i ask if i should get 2 drives is because Im not running a whole lots of samples. Currently The VI's i use are:

Komplete 5
BFD2 + 2 expansion paks
Best Service Ethno World Orient World
Altiverb
Speakerphone plus Pro Tools plugins.

If your telling me it really would be best to separate it on two drives than i was thinking of getting the OWC Mercury Elite but buy (2) 500 Gb versions instead of one 1tb drive. Also as a side note, can i hook up 2 external drives via eSATA? Feel free to recommend higher quality drives here if you feel it is needed. Im not looking to break the bank but i definitly dont want to run into hard drive problems for some time so taking care of what is needed now would be the best solution i think. Here are my computer specs as of right now in case you would like to know...

<<< System Summary >>>
> Mainboard : Asus P5KC
> Chipset : Intel P31/P35
> Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 @ 2533 MHz
> Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
> Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
> Hard Disk : ST3320620A (320 GB)
> Hard Disk : MICRONET (1000 GB)
> DVD-Rom Drive : Memorex DVD16+/-DL4RWlD2
> Monitor Type : Dell Computer DELL E172FP - 17 inches
> Monitor Type : IBM IBM L191p - 19 inches
> Network Card : L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller
> Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 SP3
> DirectX : Version 9.0c (May 2005)

[Bubblegum]

I have a Lacie 120GB FW 400 drive that I bought in 2003.

It's still working great as ever. Over the years it has been shipped via UPS from the UK to USA in a cheap carry case within a box with all my other gear and come with me as hand luggage to my new home in Thailand. I use it every day with my portable system and between 2003 and 2007 it was constantly being plugged in and unplugged as I transported my recording rig.

I guess I've been lucky. I'm pretty confident about getting a new Lacie FW drive for my new system this year.