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External Hard Drive Enclosures?
AdmiralWeirdbeard wonders: "I've been looking to put together an external hard drive for use with my Mac Mini. Obviously, the built-in storage is not sufficient. However, I know nothing about what makes an external enclosure good or bad, and have found nothing but mixed reviews for even the best rated enclosures on Newegg and Amazon. Every model seems to have at least one person complaining of an enclosure that fried the drive through overheating. The literature I've read seems to focus on the pros and cons of the various enclosures for big (50+gb) weekly or even daily system backups. I dont need anything for regular backups, but rather just for storage of my music, movies, and other miscellaneous data. Any ideas on the pros and cons of fan/fanless, construction materials, and different brands out there?"
I usually get mine from House Of Computers and they have been fine thusfar
As an iMac G5 user:
:)
I have a MacAlly firewire HDD enclosure it works great. If you Mini has firewire, stick with Wirewire. This one also has USB. I've yet to try the USB. Check the chipset the board uses inside the Oxford 911 firewire is the best firewire (according to reviews, I've yet to test it). Again, IMO the MacAlly is superb. I also have one of their 5 1/4" firewire enclosures for a DVD burner. Works great.
One brand I would avoid though: Bytecc. I have one of their USB enclosures. It rarely, if ever, mounts in OSX. It wasn't such a problem in XP though. I don't know if the fault is with the chipset (its a VIA, surprised?!) or with Apple supporting the chipset. Overall, though the transfer rate (with the same drive) is much slower than the MacAlly.
If you want a cool looking one, there is a firewire enclosure that looks like a mini-G5 aluminum tower. I'd have bought one but the fees to import into Canada would have been a bit high.
As an aside, when are SATA enclosures going to be more readily avaialble. The only ones out now have a premium price attached to it.
There. Now digest all the information. I always type more than I need to!
Some enclosures require external power from an AC adapter. Some get their power from the USB bus. How can you tell if a particular hard drive can work in a USB-powered enclosure?
If you get a drive cage made of aluminum, there is no need for a noise-making and dust-sucking fan.
How ya like dat?
There are a number of drives available that are specifically designed to sit perfectly under the Mini itself and feature the same basic color/design/etc. Most also feature USB2 and Firewire hubs. I think LaCie and Other World Computing have models, as well as a couple other manufacturers.
Try skimming MacWorld, Macintouch, XLR8yourmac, etc. for reviews.
I believe that the general consensus is that drives with an Oxford USB/firewire to IDE bridge are best, though I've not had the opportunity to verify this myself.
I purchased a very inexpensive Vantec Nexstar USB2.0/Firewire enclosure, and have been very impressed. The plastic of the enclosure feels cheap, however it comes with rubber HD mounts so that you isolate any drive vibrations from the desk/ground.
s ures.html
m it=Go&DEPA=0&type=&description=nexstar&Category=0& minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
For any enclosure, the two things to look for are: type of bridge i.e. Oxford900/911/922, and whether there is an integrated fan.
The Oxford900 is the legacy chip, do not buy one. The Oxford911 is compatible with large HDs and the 922 is Firewire800. I use my enclosure for backup so heat was not an issue, however if you plan on using the drive full time, or as a boot drive, look into a more expensive enclosure that comes with a fan.
If you want to keep with the Mac Mini styling and have extra $$ to burn, consider these: http://www.123macmini.com/accessories/guide/enclo
otherwise the Vantecs are fine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Sub
Yawn.
Newertech has a great one called the miniStack. USB 2.0 or Firewire, and has hubs for both built-in. It's available as a bare case or with a drive preinstalled.
If the order of purchases was to be reversed, I would purchase a Firewire/USB2 external hard drive, which would be bootable on the Mini.
http://www.lacie.com/products/family.htm?id=10007
- Mike -
One of the things that always strikes me about a lot of USB hard disk enclosures is how tiny they are and how hot disks run when in them. Try and get one with a small fan in the back. It will move a bit of air and help your disk to last longer. If you can't get one with a fan and portability isn't an issue, try and get a 5.25" one and a couple of mounting brackets for a 3.5" disk. The extra room will mean the disk runs slightly cooler. The 5.25" ones tend to have removable front panels too, so you can stick in a grille with a filter instead of a blank panel to improve ventilation.
If you're using it with your Mac Mini, I'd suggest that having another brick to plug into the wall isn't as big of an issue than if you were using it with your Powerbook or something. Bus powered enclusures won't power a lot of bigger disks - the USB spec doesn't provide for more than about 2.5W on the whole bus, and you lose a bit in hubs and controllers as well so there's not much left to power the disk. FireWire can provide a bit more power, and I've seen bus-powered FireWire enclosures that work quite well (if you have the larger, powered, FireWire socket on the Mac Mini rather than the mini, non-powered, one).
Make sure the enclosure is USB2 capable, and some come with FireWire as well. The dual support ones (in my experience) are more reliable and better built. FireWire is reportedly a bit faster than USB2 for sustained transfer rates, but I have never been able to demonstrate that.
Don't buy a bay with a disk in it. You pay a fortune for them compared to buying a good bay and a disk separately. Seagate and Maxtor both have them. Sure, they work and are good for people who can't use a screwdriver but you pay a premium for some guy in Taiwan to use his screwdriver instead.
I drink to make other people interesting!
After I upgraded my laptop's HD I got a SABRENT SBT-EKU25 External Enclosure for the old drive. It's USB powered, it's incredibly lightweight and works great under Linux and Windows.
-- Estoy feliz, feliz de que no sea cierto.
I have a couple of USB2 enclosures, and they tend to fail under linux. They work ok under windows on the same hardware, but if I do a lot of writing under linux, they stop working.
I've talked to other people who have the same problem.
Is this a hardware problem? Is it a matter of errors accumulating, and linux giving up, while windows keeps on plugging?
i don't know where you're looking, but where i've been looking the lowest prices have been on the 2.5" enclosures. weird, isn't it? i am cheapskate so i was looking at the 3.5" for a while and thinking that prices were too high. they are.
I have 1.92TB, 8 240GB drives, daisy-chained off of my PowerBook as I type.
Yep, looking at my server it seems three people are downloading anime at the moment. Can't tell.
400MHz G4, btw. Firewire 400.
Direct away from face when opening.
I have a 'hard drive enclosure' here that you connect to simply by plugging in an ethernet jack. It has provisions for 12 hotswap SCSI drives and can be configured for hardware RAID.
It's called an IBM PC Server 704, and it also has 4 pentium pro processors and some other stuff. The 'firmware' in it that provides access to it's storage to the machine 'expanded' by plugging into it is NetBSD.
It's also the size of a conventional two-drawer file cabinet. You could install it on a platform with casters and call it portable. I suppose.
resigned
Though at ~$300 for the setup I describe, you might just want to get an iPod.
happy hunting!
I am the very model of a modern major general!
Heh, if my kids were old enough I'd tell them about this.
Direct away from face when opening.
I picked up one of these in the beginning of the year, and put a 200GB drive in it. I keep all my installers, client drive images, and utilities on it, divided over six partitions. It has FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB2 connectors.
It replaced an identical enclosure that only offered FireWire 400 and USB2 that I bought a couple years ago, which had a 120GB drive in it.
Both enclosures are fanless, but I never had a problem with either drive due to heat. They don't run 24/7, but I've had them on for fairly long stretches. My only gripe with them is very minor: the blue activity LED is friggin' blinding-- I ended up taping a small square of copy paper over it to mute it a little bit.
~Philly
I've had 5 different HDD enclosures and from my experience Oxford 911 is the only chipset that works with FW devices. I have a Mac as well and FW is the way to go. It's much faster than USB2. Stay away from USB2.
Also, whatever you buy, make sure it is not based on PROLIFIC chipset! It's an absolute crap and I've lost 2 different hard drives because of it. Prolific claims FW support when in fact its support is shoddy at best. You'll lose your data and, eventually, you'll lose your drive. If the chipset is not listed, it probably is a Prolific chipset. Seek enclosures that have Oxford911 in the name... just to make sure.
Good luck!
Consider not having an enclosure.
I have several Wiebetech Drive Docks that work just fine.
I had the drives free standing on their side (to allow convection), or fixed to a big metal plate to distribute the heat. A desk fan would provide additional cooling
Of course, they also sell enclosures, if you must.
Max.
Itty bitty fan and itty bitty vents did little to cool the drive.
I now use it as a test sled for drives... without the plastic case. It's good for that. I may use it to convert an old SCSI box with a real fan into an external USB enclosure.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
anyway try -> http://www.techimo.com/articles/i82.html
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
If speed and capacity are not critical I would definitely recommend the smaller "laptop" enclosures. The 2.5inch drives don't use as much energy (so overheating is less likely). Since they use so little power, they can be USB powered, which keeps the cabling to a minimum. Plus they're sooo much smaller that it's a relative pleasure to move them around.
The downsides are that GB per GB, the drives are more expensive. They're also slower than desktop hard drives since they have lower bit density and generally lower rotational speeds. And drives are not available in the same capacities. The biggest 2.5 inch drives are about 100GB (i think), versus 500GB for the latest 3.5 inch drives.
I have an external firewire drive with a WD 160gb installed in it. It's made for a 5 1/4 bay so it's pretty big. There is one small fan in the back. It died, the drive was overheating so I replaced it. Then it died again. So I got a little creative and now things are going well.
I went to compusa and got a 3 fan drive bay cooler. I also got hard drive heat sinks that screw on the sides. It was a little tricky finding a way to mount everything so it'd fit in the case, but it's secured to the bottom. Both of these seems to keep the drive nearly at room temperature. It's not the most ideal situation since I had to hack it together, but it works.
So I'd say get a 5 1/4 size so you have room to put more fans in. Definitely get one with a decent power supply. Dirty power will not help your hard drive over the long haul. Of course if you can find something that advertises itself as clean power and lots of cooling, consider that option.
as long as you take care of your disk.
:)
I have a no brand combo enclosure that works just fine with a 200 GB disk in it. It does heat up mildly, but when that happens I put it vertically so that the hole at the end of the case is upwards, thus creating passive cooling.
Also, just don't go nuts with your drive and for crying out loud get an external AC for the enclosure, otherwise you'll fry your USB/Firewire ports.
Mine has been going for over a year and a half and I'm damn happy with it.
Just find something that'll work while keeping it out of the dust and without stacking layers of paper on top of it so the heat can dissipate.
You'll be just fine
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
A few features I was looking for (and found):
If you want more info, I found:
- A little flyer (.pdf) from AMS.
-
A nice video review (have to click a few things to get to it).
-
And a review with a bunch of pictures.
-
I got mine from Directron ($59, cheaper to ship to AK), but it's also at NewEgg ($54 + s/h).
My only complaint, it needs to be pretty exposed (i.e. to open air) to stay _cool_. I recently stuck mine in a cramped spot above a bunch of transformers, so I rigged up a case fan a few inches underneath (12V fan running off 5V to stay quiet) and it's cool to the touch again!I have a Kingwin USB 2.0 enclosure and it has been working fine since I bought it a year or so ago. It's black aluminum with a blue light power light and an orange activity light. the lights are quite bright, but it keeps the drive cool. I would recommend that you stand the drive up with the provided feet so that it does not heat up your desk, plus it will have more adequate airflow this way. I suggest this only because I have had it for a year and have yet to burn out a drive on it. I currently have a 250gb maxtor that I got from my local Fry's inside. The Kingwin enclosure itself is only $35 and it lasts. It has a separate power cable though, this is the only thing I wish I could change, Other than that I would recommend this and would buy it again if I needed another backup drive.
I think this is similar to the CoolMax 309 (310s are 5 1/4 and have a 40mm fan). Its more expensive than other enclosures, but they've slipped an 80mm fan under the drive for cooling. Metal case also helps with the head. Overall an Excellent case and well worth it. Some complain about the wall wart power limits, but I prefer the minijack power plug to modified PS2 power plug any day. As an aside, I have a Metal Gear which performs exceptionally well.
Mod Parent Up!!!!
Geccie
i would go with one of the custom enclosures manufacturers. there are plenty of them there in the market like this one http://www.protocase.com/. i have also seen plenty of project going on in http://mini-itx.com/. i have made some of the custom enclosures. ...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Lacie makes a good external hard drive, and it is designed to have the Mac mini sit right on top of it. It is the same size and shape, except it has a couple stands that the mini sits on top of on top of the hdd. It connects via Firewire and goes from 80-200 gigs of information. It is pretty sweet.
Oh, and Acomdata is one of the worse external hard drive companies around, bar none.
I have an USB2.0 to PATA "cable" (probably the interface chip is in the connector), accompanied by a power adaptor that converts line AC to 3.5" HDD molex power.
No enclosures, so less of a heat problem.
I got the set for the equiv of USD13 or thereabouts - and that was probably not the best price. Over here the enclosures are overpriced, I refuse to pay 3x to 4x more just to have a cheap case (and a cheap fan if lucky).
I guess it's not a solution if you mind looking at an exposed 3.5" HDD. But it works well enough for me.
I had a Maxtor Personal Storage 5000DV barbeque. There are loads of horror stories about them, so I decided to roll my own.
I've now got a USB2.0/Firewire Safecom SUSB2-F35CAF enclosure which clamps the drive between two aluminium plates. It runs pretty damn cool and only cost £21. It does have a fan, but it doesn't need it.
Of course, I couldn't throw the Maxtor's perfectly good USB2/Firewire - IDE bridge away, so I attached a temperature controlled Antec 80mm fan to the enclosure. It's a lot cooler and not much louder.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
I bought a PHR-250CC from Newegg (I think it was). I also bought a 2.5" drive that installed rather easily. (You need a very small phillips screw driver and you need to slide it together with the correct edge going into the correct slot.)
It has both USB 2.0 and 1394 jacks. It comes with a heavy USB cable that will power it off my notebook, but it also comes with a second USB-to-power connector cable for computers that put off less power. It also comes with a heavy 1394 cable that presumably will power it if you have a 6-pin Firewire jack.
It works great with my Linux machine, I get 27 MB/s on it. I haven't tried the 1394, but at least some of the time this model is marketed under the Macally name, so I bet it works fine with a Macintosh.
The drive is mostly metal. I don't coddle it, but it seems to stand up well. I'd buy another.
-kb
Step 1 is to get yourself a Seagate Barracuda hard drive. Watch dealmac.com for deals and you can probably pick up 200GB for $50 or so. They're low noise and don't heat up much.
Then, I got an Argosy USB 2.0 HiSpeed / Firewire 400 enclosure from pcmicrostore.com. The Argosy has an aluminium casing which is only slightly larger than the hard drive; basically, the casing acts like a giant heat sink. The PSU is in an external brick. So, no fan is required.
I've run the drive overnight in mammoth backup sessions with no overheating problems. The case gets warm, but not uncomfortably warm; just warm like a hard drive in a well-ventilated computer.
I just noticed Argosy now have a version of the enclosure which will plug straight in to ethernet and act as a server. Slick!
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
and how portable does it have to be?
There are a bazillion enclosures out there, I'm sure you've found. I picked up an "old" (but brand new) FW400 tower on ebay for $300. It holds 8 drives on 4 bridges which you can daisy chain. Came with a fan or two, and 6 drives totalling about 1TB have been cranking away for a year and a half now with no failures. It's the size and shape of a tower PC. Not really a cute companion for your mini.
Alternately, I've got a pair of Sabrent enclosures which I use for backup of my laptop and mp3s. I can take them on the road with me. They run off of USB power (USB2 transfer), and are only slightly bigger than the notebook drives they enclose. I won't say that they're fool proof, as I had to send one back almost immediatly after recieving it because it had a bad contriller board. However, they're supersmall and I haven't noticed heat issues, though they're not used in a hot environment. Down side is that they require 2.5" (notebook) drives, which will run you a bit more than a 3.5" on a per-gig basis, and you can't get a really big one (120GB max on the market right now, iirc).
Of course, you could also look at one of these which is a 2 bay, optional HW RAID 0, FW800 PATA (the old IDE/ATA spec) enclosure for $130. It's got fans and at least a bit of style, and with two 500GB drives would certainly give you room to spare.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You want consensus on an opinion so you turn to Ask Slashdot? Wow...
2.5" (laptop)
or
3.5"
My first drive I bought is a SmartDisk Firelite. They make USB and FireWire versions. These come with an HD pre-installed.
I have since bought a 2.5" enclosure - Vantec NexStar. This is a USB2.0 enclosure for 2.5" drives. Very handy for making use of old laptop drives. The best part is that these new ones pull power off the USB line. I can't speak to the FireWire drives.
I also have some high capacity 3.5" drives in external enclosures. One is a Metal Gear Box. The other is a Mad Dog. The Metal Gear unit is all aluminum with vented sides for maximum cooling. The Mad Dog is not so good for cooling. It is a tight fit and the outer case feels like plastic. Also, the Mad Dog plays havoc with AM radios. I suspect it is because it is a non-metal housing. Well, it says it is anodized aluminum, but it feels more like plastic.
Generally speaking, you will pay a lot more per GB for a pre-installed hard drive, compared with smart shopping for bargains on enclosures and drives.
Good luck.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Their house brand enclosures have been based on Oxford 911 from day one, and have good build quality. Got one for my sister a year ago and so far no problems. Moreover, their support is great - seems like a decently small outfit committed to actually serving tech-oriented customers. Most of their do-it-yourself stuff has a video download link and print-out instruction on how to do the install right. They also tend to be some of the first to do things like put both USB 2.0 and firewire on an enclosure, or firewire 800, usb 2.0, and firewire 400 on the same enclosure so you can use your drive as fast as possible anywhere.
Not affiliated with them at all, just a satisfied returning customer.
http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php
Netgear offer the SC101 storage center.
Takes a couple of ide drives. Runs as RAID 1. No fans, size of a small toaster, cheap, effectively NAS.
Sadly windows only drivers for now.
But... while lots of USB drives come formatted in DOS style, and
require a reformat, there shouldn't be any reason a USB2 drive won't
boot a Mac Mini. It sure would boot my old iMac. After
putting a HFS extended file system on it, and (OS 10.3+) enabling journalling,
of course.
On a related note, does anyone have a good source for cheap, naked USB to IDE boards? I don't want an enclosure or power supply, just the board. Google wasn't very useful (most I found cost more than buying an enclosure).
This space for rent.