Recommended Firewire 400 Drives

[nob turner]

the owc neptune drives use the oxford 911 chipset, and are very reasonably priced... last i checked, a 160GB drive was $110. shipping is fair too. this is what i recommend to my clients these days. i've been doing business with owc for many years, and have found them to be honest and accurate.

[sky88dd]

ya, I also have a couple of external hard drives from OWC. I have the mercury elite and its a 912 oxford chipset.
The price is very reasonable and I've had no problems with them.

[req06]

I use a lacie d2 which has two fw800 and one fw400 ports. Its great, used it every day for the last 3 years in my studio and on field trips. Solidly built with metal casing. Only thing is its noise when recording, well its not noisy just a few whirrs every now and then, which can be an issue when recording in the same room, however I think this type of noise is inevitable with hds. I can't recomend them enough. Heard good things about owc drives on the psw forums.
If you have a fw800 port I would strongly advise you to get a drive which will work with fw800.

[John J.]

I've used Seagate and Hitachi (IBM) Deskstars for years with Mac powerbooks and towers, both FW400 and 800. Usually put them in a Macally PHR100 external case. All's good.

[Keniko]

I Use two Glyph 80 gig Netdrives for audio and video. I've ben' using these drives for about 3 years with out a problem. They're built like a tank and very reliable. Video is the test of a drives performance cuz video is so demanding on a drive. The Glyph has held up flawlessly. Just my 2 cents. Thanks.

[cfb25]

I only use Lacie's, I have 4 in varying sizes. They all have at FW400, FW800, and usb 2.0, great for when I travel because I know I can hook it up to anything. My oldest is 5+yrs old and I haven't had any issues. I use them everyday, and travel with them, and never had a problem. I even dropeed one in a parking lot a couple of weeks ago, I was tearing my hair out until I could plug it in and check on it. Came right up, no problems with anything and i've been using it for pt recording since... I find they are nice and quiet, (quieter than my dual G5 ppc) and plenty reliable. Hope this helps..

[Jacobus]

OMG !

You guys using Lacie d2 drives or any other drive with Maxtor inside....

MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP !!

Lots of people (including me ) have had these dying on them.
Something to do with the fact that they don't have fans and/or the casing is prone to statics.

J.

[digi-mike]

Thanks to all for your information. VERY helpful.

It's frustrating because Digi lists the Oxford 911 chipset. However, not many manufacturers list what chipset they use. How important is this?

Is there a list of Digi-approved external drives. I have searched all over their site but I can't find it.

Anyone have experience with the Western Digital My Book Pro Edition? It has all three ports FW400, FW 800 and USB 2.0. These are readily available in my area but I don't know what chipset they use.

[Forum Member LE]

I don't know what the deal is with the LaCie D2's.
I have a D2 Extreme w/ the triple interface and it self destructed.
The Hardrive shorted and took out the power board.
The other 3 D2's are the straight FW400 units and are fine.
The FW400 had WD drives the Extreme had a Maxtor.
My point is there are inconsistencies in the drives so your mileage my vary from what others report.

[MissHiss]

Do a Google search. Type "Digidesign Approved Hard Drives" and see what comes up. Like I said, the EZQuest drives are the only ones I know of that are genuinely "Digidesign Approved," though I believe Glyph makes several that are also Digi approved. Those would be the GT series, I think. But Glyph is even more expensive.

If you can't take my word for it and actually have to have the ad copy say it meets Digidesign requirements and that it has the 911 chipset, check it out here.