Suggestions for an external firewire/USB drive

[Gary Corcoran]

Paul Sommerhein wrote:
> 
> > > I am looking for an external firewire/USB drive >= 200 GB to go with
> > > FreeBSD-4.8.
> 
> Hmmm... I guess I am a little bit confused about what to buy here as I
> need a large disk which should be robust enough for being transported
> around.
> 
> Does anyone else have any suggestions for what to buy?  Any pointers
> appreciated.

If you want a drive that can be transported around a lot, I'd suggest
that you buy one or more of the Hitachi (formerly IBM) Travelstar "80GB"
2.5" drives, and put it/them in the relatively-new IOGear 2.5" case which
has both USB2.0 and Firewire interfaces.  The enclosure comes with cables
for both USB and Firewire, a power supply, and has a feature I really like:
an On/Off switch, so you don't have to unplug anything if you don't need to,
just to power it down.  The main body of the case is metal too, so it's
good for heat dissipation.

Since notebook disk drives are made specifically to be robust when
carried around, I'd be leery of carrying around (e.g. in a backpack)
anything else on a day-to-day basis.  If on the other hand you just
wanted a drive that could be transported, say in a car, once a month
(for example), then a Maxtor external drive might be reasonable, as
long as you are careful with the drive.

I haven't yet tried the IOGear enclosure on FreeBSD, but since it has
both USB and Firewire interfaces, hopefully at least _one_ of them will
work.  Oh, and the IOGear box says the model number is GHE125C, in case
that helps you search for someone selling them (buy.com has them).

Gary