Review of OWC Mercury On the Go Portable Disk

Long have Slashdot Editors made known the fact that we'll review pretty much any interesting gadget shipped our way. This week we have the OWC "Mercury On-The-Go", a 2.5" external hard drive featuring FW800 and USB2 ports and available in 40 to 160gb flavors. Read on for my review of the drive.

I plugged it into my PowerBook using the included USB cable Since the device didn't immediately mount, I guessed I needed power too- I was disappointed, but not exactly surprised. Another dive into the box revealed a firewire and power cable. Oh, and a one page "Manual" and CD. Seconds later I was off and running.

The back of the the drive tells the story: 2 FireWire 800 ports, one USB 2.0 Port, a power switch, and a power plug. The case is transparent. Of course that means all you see is a boring old hard drive. I sorta wanted to just use it upside down- the bottom of a hard drive is more aesthetically interesting than the top.

The drive arrived Mac formatted, and shipped with a bunch of wacky stuff on it, including the old Ellen Feiss Apple ad, and a directory with a slew of high quality disk icons. I'll be honest- I'm obsessive about things like drive icons. I make sure that my iPod icon is the correct version of the iPod on my desktop, or when I mount my digital camera or PSP, the icons match the device. So while I'm sure the vast majority of users would simply blow away the folder, I find touches like this very nice.

The Mercury comes with a little carrying case too. Nothing to write home about really. The unit itself is quite small- almost exactly the same size as my Nintendo DS. Unfortunately the case must also carry the power supply which makes the whole thing much larger.

I've used a number of external storage devices, and performance was roughly as I would expect. Since it's an external drive, read/write performance is really more about cabling than anything else. It took 3:36 to copy 3 gigs of data over USB, and 2:24 to copy the same 3 gigs over FW800. The upside is that the FW800 cable provides power- I was able to mount the drive without use of extra power cables.

So without further ado, I present to you my executive summary:

• It looks nice. Nothing spectacular, just nice.
• USB2 is slower and requires an external power supply
• A good choice for FW800 support.
• $150 for the 40GB version up to $450 for the 160GB version.

My struggle with this drive is really the "Why"? It occupies an incredibly expensive niche between "Portable" and "Large".

If vast storage is what you need, with less portability, a 320GB external USB drive can be had for around $150-200. Less mobile to be sure, but twice the storage for just over a third the price. I've included a photo of the Mercury with a Gameboy DS and iPod just to give you a sense of the scale of the whole thing.

The Mercury On-the-go isn't going into your shirt pocket: especially if you are using the USB connection and lugging the external power adapter. If what you really crave portability, a 60GB iPod is way smaller, doesn't require an external power supply, and runs like $400.

On the other hand, if you need 100-160 gigs, and plan to use a FW800 cable, this is a reasonable, but pricey option. It does exactly what you would expect in an external hard drive. It's quick, easy, and simple. It just doesn't seem cost effective to me.

Comments

Wow.... an external harddrive

[jjh37997]

Wow.... an external harddrive. Color me impressed!

Re:Wow.... an external harddrive

[Anonymous Coward]

All out of impressed... Could I interest you in Sarcastic Bastard?

Review Review

[Anonymous Coward]

Words = 609
Sentences = 38
Sentences per Paragraph = 2.9
Words per Sentence = 15.5
Characters per word = 4.3
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level = 8.3 ... just playing with you, Taco!

Screw That

[brunes69]

Just buy an external IDE enclosure for $15 bucks anywhere. You can pop a 320 GB drive in that for a fraction of the price of this thing. Plus it is upgradeable.

If you want a smaller drive just do as above but with a 2.5" laptop drive enclosure.

Re:Screw That

[mikedaisey]

"If you want a smaller drive just do as above but with a 2.5" laptop drive enclosure."

You can buy these as just enclosures, for $59--and that's why they are popular. It's very fast to swap 2.5" laptop drives in and out of them. I have two myself.

Re:Screw That

[bill_mcgonigle]

It appears this model is $85.

Re:Screw That

[bill_mcgonigle]

Just buy an external IDE enclosure for $15 bucks anywhere.

Where are you buying these for $15? I'm paying $17 just for a decent drive sled at NewEgg and the decent enclosures are in the neighborhood of $35 there.

Re:Screw That

[mmkkbb]

You can actually shave some bucks off that price just by buying the individual components from OWC. They sell plenty of 2.5" hard drive mechanisms and an array of FireFire enclosures. I haven't been able to find 3.5" drives that are bus-powered for FireWire at all, which is the thing I need most.

Re:Screw That

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If a drive enclosure only costs $15, I wouldn't trust putting it in a garbage can, it might explode or something, leaving me with a mess.

The smaller drive enclosure plus the small size drives are a lot more expensive, and this one seems to be that way. This seems to be niche, I don't think there is a point to FW800 in a 2.5" enclosure, I don't think even the 7200RPM laptop drives can get a worthwhile benefit from FW800.

Re:Screw That

[dgatwood]

3.5" bus-powered hard drives are so far beyond impractical that it isn't even funny. You'd mainly want bus-powered devices for laptop use, where such power consumption is just plain impossible with anything remotely resembling current hardware.

The maximum Firewire power for a 15" G4 PowerBook, for example, is 7W (12.8V @ 546mA). The idle spinning drain for a typical 3.5" hard drive is on the order of 9W, with startup power requirements that can exceed 35W. That's more than half the maximum output of the entire power supply for my iBook. And that's just the spindle power (12V rail). It doesn't include the current to drive the electronics (5V rail).

Even the FireWire ports on things like the PowerMac G5 only typically put out 15W (shared across all the FireWire ports). Put your FireWire and USB ports together, and you're approaching half the spindle start current needed to spin up a 3.5" drive.

And don't think this is a Mac-specific thing. You can't do it on a PC, either. You're going to be constrained by the power limits on the bus that powers your interface card. PCI is capped at a maximum of 25W per slot. So you'd have to gang together almost all of the power from two entire PCI slots to spin up a single FireWire 3.5" hard drive. If you tried to do it at only 25W, a lot of drives would just sit there when you powered them on, as there wouldn't be enough power to actually start the platters moving. (Yes, you might be able to exceed 25W on a single slot, but... let's just say it isn't recommended.)

The reason it hasn't been done is not because manufacturers don't think it's useful. It hasn't been done because the current needed to start a 3.5" platter spinning is freaking huge.

Sweet but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah thats cute, but I got my little iRiver thing here, I popped an 80G in it, it does USB storage for me and as a plus it plays music when I aint using it as a portable HD.

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

was able to mount the drive without use of extra power cables.

Re:wow

[morcheeba]

was able to mount the drive without use of extra power cables.

That is more information than I need to know. I won't even ask which port you used.

Re:wow

[Donniedarkness]

Hopefully, they used protection.

www.zonelabs.com, kids.

Re:wow

[IHSW]

That is more information than I need to know. I won't even ask which port you used.

teh funne?
teh funne?
teh funne is absent

My version of on-the-go data

[dada21]

I love my T-Mobile EDGE wireless network service (via my phone to my laptop). It doesn't work well for huge files, but I work with mostly small files and if I need to access a large database or app, I just VNC into my office PC.

I see no purpose in my life for huge files anymore -- most everything I do is web oriented. Rather than spend $450 for a gigantic drive, that $450 pays for almost 2 years of service which is always getting faster.

Do other people see the time preference and money savings in slimming down their data and finding better ways to access it on-the-go as needed? There are more open WiFi points and the $40 it costs for me to drop a user WiFi point at my various places of work is still much cheaper than buying a portable drive, let alone the hassles of carrying yet another dongle/fob/accessory.

Re:My version of on-the-go data

[XMilkProject]

I see no purpose in my life for huge files anymore

You've discovered some amazing new way to compress porn?

Re:My version of on-the-go data

[dada21]

You've discovered some amazing new way to compress porn?

One of the benefits of having a gorgeous lady of the house is the lack of need for porn :)

On the other hand, I have heard from many married men that the absolute opposite is true, but I have my own opinions why that's the case.

Re:My version of on-the-go data

[bill_mcgonigle]

C'mon, you're smart - you can imagine scenarios where this drive is useful (photography, prepress, tech support, portable desktop, etc). Plus not all of us live in the land of ubiquitous cell phone coverage.

Re:My version of on-the-go data

[MinutiaeMan]

Okay... so what about backups? What about large photo collections, or home movie projects? There are plenty of things that you always want to have a redundant copy of, just on the off chance that something fries your system.

Re:My version of on-the-go data

[dada21]

This is why I also drop WiFi access points wherever I spend a lot of time -- even at my church (where I run sound, media and communications). All my customers have a private access point of mine (tied to my MAC address and turned off when I'm not there). One of my directories is set to automatically backup when it connects to a certain network, so I don't even think about backing up anymore. Over time I'd like this to be even more automated.

Since I carry my laptop practically everywhere I go, I can dump my digital photos instantly to it (which syncs to the network as needed). I can also access most of my photos fairly quickly via the EDGE connection (~150kbps downloads).

Re:My version of on-the-go data

[Stephen Samuel]

It depends on what you're doing. If most of your stuff consists of nothing much larger than a large Word file or a couple of MP3s, then network storage and a good map of WiFi hotspots should be good enough. On the other hand, I do things like trouble shooting... so being able to boot Knoppix from CD and backup an 80GB hard drive before I get to work cleaning up a system is nice.

I've got a 1 year old 5" enclosure, so I can fit just about anything I want into the thing. It consistently transfers about 38MB/second, which makes it faster than most DVD drives and I can do whatever I want with it... Format it for any filesystem, Linux, Windows or Mac.

It'a also secure, in that I don't have to worry about Google, or my ISP snooping my data while being stored or in transit -- and if I need real security beyond physical posession, both Linux and Windows support encrypted filesystems.

The enclosure cost me about $40 (don't know the exact price.. Got it at the same time as a larger system purchase).

I agree with you that the $400 drive doesn't look like that much of a value to me. About the only value of it is that it can fit in a shirt pocket (as long as you don't need the adapter). That's not worth the $350 premium, but my $50 USB2 enclosure is someithing that I'm very glad that I bought.

(( and if I want to use it to recover a laptop drive, all I have to do is buy a $12 laptop drive adapter and plug it into the box )).

Re:My version of on-the-go data

[Ohreally_factor]

It doesn't count as sex if you're married.

You weren't asking, but my advice to you is to keep shacking up with your broad, but don't marry her. =) And you can tell her a slashdotter told you so.

Zing

[LandownEyes]

Now just make it play mp3s and release it five years ago and you'll make BILLIONS!

Playing devil's advocate here... was:Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

He did say on the front page:

"Long have Slashdot Editors made known the fact that we'll review pretty much any interesting gadget shipped our way."

Though of course this might not really qualify under "interesting gadget" nowadays...

Not to sound like an asshole

[Donniedarkness]

I'm not trying to complain here or anything, but how is this special? It's just an overpriced external HD, right (and it is DEFINATELY overpriced, if that's all it is).

Why not just buy an external IDE enclosure? Do it yourself, that way you can change the HD and upgrade it later (if you need extra space).

Re:Not to sound like an asshole

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

well, I'm not trying to be a jackass or anything, but did you even read the review?
That is exactly what Taco said.
Overpriced
very small niche market
just go out and get a bigger cheaper drive unless you need exactly this setup.

I can understand people who dont RTFA when you have to link to an external site, but the review is right underneath the summary. Gimme a break.

Re:Not to sound like an asshole

[Donniedarkness]

No, I read the article. My point was: Why was there even an article on it? What was supposed to be special about it in the first place?

Re:Not to sound like an asshole

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

did you?
that was one of the first things taco said.
he said they'll review anything they get given. Its good pr for them to do so. It keeps people sending them their products when they review everything, even if its not the coolest shit ever.
So this drive is not exactly what you'd want to pay $500 bucks for, so what?
By reviewing it, taco is guaranteeing that other gear will be reviewed in the future, cause lets face it, they're not gonna go buy all this stuff themselves.

Just cause you want to be a negative nancy doesnt mean there is no point in the exercise.

Re:Not to sound like an asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny though, dude got a +4 insightful, yes that's right, insightful. I don't think many people that moderate understand the definition of insightful. If you look it up on dictionary.com you see they define it as perceptive. I guess if you call being awake perceptive then dude would qualify.

Personally, I consider insight the ability to look past what the average person sees to see the elements that make up a greater truth. Perhaps the greatest insight of any one man was when Copernicus realized the Earth revolved around the sun. Everyone else in the world believed the sun revolved around the Earth, which is quite understandable since that definitely appears to be the case. Copernicus, more so than anyone else before or since, saw past what the average person saw to see the greater truth. That's insight at its greatest.

Certainly it is possible to be insightful to a much lesser extent. However, I do believe there is a point to which the insightfulness of an observation reaches zero, and this is that point.

Re:Not to sound like an asshole

[Eil]

It's not special, hence the lukewarm review. He was simply asked to review the unit honestly and he did. No harm in that, is there? A review of a product that turns out being rather poor is far more useful to most people than either lying about it and saying it's great or simply not reviewing it at all. Wish there were more actual review sites that were this truthful.

Laptop drives are nice

[temojen]

We bought a case of them (+enclosures) to sell (populated with data) to our clients. They're a handy way to distribute data if you have to ship >8GB of it to your customer. Unfortunately the enclosures we bought came with a confusing Y-Cable, which we had to replace.

Re:Ummm

[hal9000(jr)]

Great advertis, ummm, I mean review, Taco.

Dude. Read the last 3 paragraphs. He's not exactly recommending you go buy this thing, just the opposite, he giving less pricy alternatives.

Portable HD = No power cube

[cejones]

I'm sorry, but for a harddrive to really be portable, it must be powered by USB or Firewire. Who wants to lug around yet another power adapter?

This is not news except for Firewire 800 connectivity. And Firewire 800 seems to be such a niche, I doubt it will ever really catch on.

Re:Portable HD = No power cube

[mikedaisey]

I have this drive--it doesn't need a power brick if you adjust the on switch on the back to the setting where it gets the power over the bus. I use variations of this drive design on FW400 and FW800 all the time.

Here's a bigger, yet cheaper WD External 250Gb

[digitaldc]

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oi d=145402&cm_keycode=85

A bigger, yet cheaper option for anyone that is willing to do a mail-in rebate and doesn't need to put it in their pocket.

Re:Here's a bigger, yet cheaper WD External 250Gb

[miller701]

I didn't see Firewire on that one.

Beats the $hit out of G-Tech

[ExE122]

Those prices are pretty good if you compare to to the G-Tech G-DRIVE mini

The G-Drive may look cooler with its "Rugged Aluminum Enclosure" and leather carrying case, but the OWC has FW800+USB2.0 and the G-Tech only has FW400+USB2.0. I wasn't able to find cache sizes, but I'm willing to bet G-Tech only has 8MB available. Here are some prices comparisons I put together (correct me if I made a mistake):

40GB(5400)

• OWC (16MB Cache)- $149.99
• GTech - $149.00

60GB(7200)

• OWC - $219.99
• GTech - $249.00

80GB(5400)

• OWC (16MB Cache)- $219.99
• GTech - $219.00

80GB(7200)

• OWC - $249.99
• GTech - $299.00

100GB(5400)

• OWC - $249.99
• OWC (16MB Cache) - $259.99
• GTech - $269.00

100GB(7200)

• OWC - $299.99
• GTech - $359.00

160GB(5400)

• OWC - $449.99
• GTech - N/A

Pretty damn good if you ask me!

--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"

Re:Beats the $hit out of G-Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a ripoff.

Blatant advertising of crappy overpriced products sucks.

Re:Beats the $hit out of G-Tech

[qbwiz]

200GB internal hard drive+enclosure: $80.
Seems to be pretty obvious to me (at least if you don't have firewire 800, and you don't care exactly how small the drive is).

Re:Ummm

[Tweekster]

Yes yes, we get it. Slashdot isnt allowed to mention any company or product becuase then it will automatically be an advertisement.

Mr. Taco,

[Chabil Ha']

Aside from previous posts alluding to this, was the audience considered when doing this review? Don't many /.ers go out of their way to buy something that they can put together themselves? The obvious /. answer (as covered in other posts) is to buy a cheap drive and corresponding enclosure.

Now, if the drive did something else cool, say was a combination drive/electric shaver, IMHO, we would start drooling over something like this. However, run-of-the-mill junk like this is something that could just as easily be bought at Wal-Mart, CostCo etc. by someone too afraid and unknowledgable to do it themselves.

With all that said, let's see some stuff that matters...like a combo drive/electric shaver.

Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> Dude. Read the last 3 paragraphs.

I doubt he read any of the paragraphs..

For those of you too lazy to read, the executive summary:

My struggle with this drive is really the "Why"? It occupies an incredibly expensive niche between "Portable" and "Large".

Taco's words, so he is hardly selling this thing.

Re:Ummm

[gEvil (beta)]

Oh, I read the thing. Although, my struggle with this review is really the "Why?" It's one thing to review a new product. It's another to review something that's different from what else is out there. It's simply pointless, however, to review a standard run-of-the-mill product that is no different from quite literally hundreds of other products out there.

The USB Y-cable is necessary...

[blorg]

...to use the enclosures with combinations of certain higher-power laptop drives and certain computers that don't supply enough power to a single USB port. As most laptop drives are ~1A and the USB spec is 500mA this can end up being quite a few. I know I have to use the Y cable with my laptop (as the USB2 port is on a PC card) and my Shuttle, but don't need to use it on a computer in work.

With a Y-cable you will never need an external power supply, which is very handy and the key difference between a 2.5" and a 3.5" drive - far less to lug around.

Of course the point is moot if you are using Firewire which provides enough power for any laptop drive.

Re:The USB Y-cable is necessary...

[temojen]

Also moot if you chose lower-powered drives.

Re:The USB Y-cable is necessary...

[tgibbs]

The only USB drive that I know that will work on a Mac Aluminum Powerbook USB port without external power is the iPod. Haven't tried a Y-cable.

Firewire, on the other hand, generally is not a problem.

Re:The USB Y-cable is necessary...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a capacitor set up in the USB cable so that you can provide the spin up power for the drive? Anybody tried anything of that sort? Just plug the cable in first so that the cap can charge...

Re:The USB Y-cable is necessary...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is because the (full size) iPod contains a 1.8" PCMCIA form factor hard drive, not a regular 2.5" notebook drive. (The iPod mini contained an even smaller CF sized hard drive.) Firewire ports with bus power (6 pin) will spin up a 2.5" drive no problem. USB ports only offer 500mA at 5V which is not enough to spin up a 2.5" drive.

OWC, a great company

[cyngus]

As someone who has done business with OWC for the last eight years I just want to say that they've been great. I've ordered everything from software to RAM to processor upgrades from them and never had a problem. Once I got a couple of bad sticks of RAM (in an order of 50) and they were replaced promptly and without a problem.

Angry because of a review?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if you send me anything worth more than $100, I'll write a review and put it on the web as long as I get to keep it. He just did a write-up on an external drive someone sent him in the mail, he didn't go out and buy it dinner and then make out with it.

Re:Angry because of a review?

[Anonymous Coward]

he didn't go out and buy it dinner and then make out with it.

Ummmm... some people would pay handsomely to see Taco do that with a hard drive. Ummm... not me.

500 milliamps

[vlad_petric]

... is all you're gonna get on a USB connection (at 5v) ... That's pretty punny for a regular hdd.

Re:500 milliamps

[morcheeba]

The Seagate 2.5" 4200 rpm (100GB) drives require: (data taken from this pdf overview)
* 5.0W at startup
* 2.3W during seek
* 2.1W reading/writing
* 1.0W Idle
* 0.2W Standby

Except for startup, that's all under 5v * .5A = 2.5W that USB provides. That surge could easily be handled by a rechargable AA battery or an ultra-capacitor. Or, in a desperate pinch, require 2 USB connectors -- it's still better than lugging a power cube.

Re:500 milliamps

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Is that current limit enforced? I wonder how many companies try to get away with overcurrent. I understand some powerbooks had problems with excessive current draw, unfortunately, I heard that it had consequences such as the machine going into limited mode if it worked at all.

Re:500 milliamps

[morcheeba]

Yep, usually they are. It prevents a paperclip jammed in the connector from damaging or shutting down your whole computer. Here's an example part to do that

Re:500 milliamps

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to account for the rest of the electronics in the drive enclosure such as the USB to IDE bridge chip though this should only contribute a little extra current draw. At any rate, when the drive is active (seeking vs idle) you are right on the edge of the 500mA available from USB and you chose a 4200 RPM drive which is the low end of power usage (there are 5400 and 7200 RPM versions of 2.5" drives also which require more power / probably beyond what USB can provide with the drive is in the active state.)

The enclosure in question does come with a "Y" cable as a way to power the drive from USB. (Two USB connections to the laptop: one for power + data and the second for additional power only.) On the other hand, a Firewire port with bus power (6 pin) does provide enough current to spin up a 2.5" drive so you get away with a single cable. (I do this with my Powerbook on battery power and a less expensive brand of Firewire enclsoure with a Seagate 5400 RPM 100GB 2.5" drive. I also have some of the OWC enclosures for 3.5" drives which are too much to power from Firewire. To spin up a 3.5" drive you need a 12V power brick.)

Using an AA battery to provide extra power to spin up a 2.5" drive when attached to USB is kinda ugly. (Would make the enclosure bigger and you have to worry if the battery has gone dead.) A supercap might work if you had some power management circuit that delayed spin up of the drive until it was sure the cap was fully charged. And remember that laptops do some fairly aggressive power management with hard drives. (A laptop will regularly power down the drive and spin it back up when something actually needs access if running from battery power.) So that makes the supercap solution more difficult. How much charge time is required before the drive can spin back up after being powered down?

Basically, USB isn't really up to the task of powering 2.5" drives. And the 500mA limit is fairly well enforced. If you exceeded it the port is normally powered off and you must unplug and replug the USB cable to restore operation.

power

[Qwavel]

I've bought quite a few 2.5" HD's and put them in cheapo USB enclosures. They all work fine without any external power. Why would I pay much more money for a unit that's much less portable (because it requires me to carry around a power supply)?

Re:power

[Anonymous Coward]

You do NOT need the power supply unless you are connected to an unpowered or under-powered port. I basically leave the power supply in the box it came in because I never use it. When I take one of these drives on trips as laptop backup, all I carry is the drive and one cable.

Re:power

[Anonymous Poodle]

Umm, because the cheapo drives often fail. We were going thorugh a lot of cheap drive enclosures at work, till we switched to the OWC drives--our failure rate dropped to near zero.

Having said that, it is still an ex$pensive drive--the larger OWC drives are a much better deal, and bulletproop to boot.

An next,

[InsurgentGeek]

I'm really really looking forward to next week's review of USB cables and screen cleaners.

Re:An next,

[thinkzinc]

I'm really really looking forward to next week's review of USB cables and screen cleaners. Someone please mod this as funny!

Why no power over USB 2?

[pointbeing]

I have a 40GB Pocketec USB 2.0 hard drive that's powered just fine over USB 2.0 - no Firewire, but it's smaller and (IM frequently less than HO) cuter than the Mercury. I'm seeing them on Froogle for as little less than the Mercury also - but I paid a lot more than that for mine when it first came out ;-)

Yes these drives are pricey, but...

[zuki]

...For someone who travels all the time and needs vast amount of data storage available such as a huge sample library (for music composition), this is ideal.

Well, I am not sure that FW/800 makes such a difference, but I own two of the FW/400 models, use them all the time and have found them an absolute pleasure to work with!

You can also buy the enclosure separately and put whatever drive strikes your fancy in there; regarding the price, it is really a tradeoff for the convenience, and when working with a Mac, it is really incredible to be able to use this without even needing external power in situation such as when on an airplane for a long time. (ever been to Asia?...)

These also ship with the shortest Firewire cables I have ever seen - just 1' long -, wish I knew where to buy them. As a footnote, I must add that when traveling, the Homeland Security types actually welcome transparent cases as they can exactly see what's inside.

Z.

eSATA for speed.

[eddy]

If all you cared about was speed, you'd go eSATA2 instead of USB or firewire, right? This product seems way expensive for a solution that doesn't even offer an eSATA- or LAN-connection

Re:eSATA for speed.

[whit3]

I've seen pro photographers using this kind of drive, to good effect.

A full day's photoshoot would exceed the capacity of the digital camera's media
card (remember, it's about $60/gigabyte for compactFlash, having dozens of
cards is not a great option). But even the raw mode (uncompressed) will fit easily
onto a suitable disk.

You need a good laptop screen to preview the shots anyhow (before the model
changes her dress, you need to KNOW that there's a good image), so you
plug in the outboard drive (get three, they're small), preview and when
it looks good, send the decorative woman back to the dressing room while you
do your download and sort files into labeled folders.

And the entire assembly is portable so you can go on the road for backdrops or
to visit the clothing-prototype collection. If there were good eSATA laptops,
it'd be a contender. But, there aren't. An Apple powerbook with firewire
drives can get a LOT of use before the hardware gets obsolete. The use of
a stack of spare batteries means you can be far from AC power during the
whole event (summer fashions on the beach, you know).

It must be bootable

[Jerry Rivers]

A portable drive must be bootable because if it's useful only for storage then it's over-priced. That's why it also has to have Firewire, unless you want to fiddle with firmware to get your Mac to boot from USB.

It doesn't care. Really.

[pointbeing]

I sorta wanted to just use it upside down- the bottom of a hard drive is more aesthetically interesting than the top.

Hard drives don't care if you run them upside down, taco. Honest.

Is this a commercial?

[fm6]

I'm always disdainful when people claim that a Slashdot story is just an ad. But this time I've got to wonder. Why else does this product rate a review? It's yet another USB portable hard disk. There must be hundreds on the market.

Re:Is this a commercial?

[Jerry Rivers]

RTFA. It has two Firewire 800 ports (important for booting and for chaining firewire drives) and one USB2. It's true there are hundreds of USB drives. Many aren't portable, aren't bus powered, and aren't bootable.

This review has actually missed the point. If all you need is storage then this drive is both unnecessary and over-priced, as you can buy a 250GB dual Firewire 800 and USB2 drive for under $200 US. If you need reliable portable backup you can boot from while on the road then this drive could be invaluable to you.

Re:Is this a commercial?

[fm6]

I did miss the part about Firewire. But so what? Firewire-powered drives are nothing new. I even own one, which I bought 4 years ago. But I haven't used the Firewire port since my Sony laptop was stolen. USB 2 is the standard now — it's faster, and more widely implemented.

USB-powered isn't a big deal either. You're right, most drives aren't USB-powered. But many are, including this puppy which I just bought from Slashdot's sister site, ironically enough.

Daisy-chaining is nice, but not worth paying such a huge premium for.

Re:Is this a commercial?

[Jerry Rivers]

"USB 2 is the standard now -- it's faster, and more widely implemented."

You can't boot from USB without major tweaking of the firmware.

Re:Ummm

[Vellmont]

Dude. Read the last 3 paragraphs. He's not exactly recommending you go buy this thing, just the opposite, he giving less pricy alternatives.

Well, there's a link to Other World Computing (the only link in the article). So while it may not be a great endorsement of this device, the article is CERTAINLY an advertisement for OWC.

Here's a better solution

[Rob_Bryerton]

Get a MacAlly 2.5 enclosure from NewEgg (or your favorite vendor) for ~$30, and use a 2.5 HD of your choosing. This is a very nice aluminum enclosure, supports FW400 & USB 2, and is powered off the connector you use (FW *OR* USB)...no external power needed. Affordable, sturdy, attractive (for a HD case), dissipates heat, no power adapters.

I carry one in my laptop bag, and it constantly comes in handy. As far as FW800 goes, why would this be useful for a run of the mill 2.5 IDE drive? Thay can only transfer ~20MB/s from the platters, so FW800 is overkill. USB2 & FW400 are just fine for this application.

FWIW, I'm not affiliated w/these companies I mentioned, just a happy customer.

Roll your own?

[retro128]

A power adapter? You've got to be kidding - Most external 2.5" HD enclosures can be powered by the USB bus itself. Plus, you are paying some company to take a drive, put it in a case, and slap their name on it. Why does this unit have Firewire 800 anyway? FW400 is faster than any laptop drive can go...And, besides, is Firewire REALLY necessary when just about every computer under the sun has USB 2.0 now? Besides, USB2.0 can also sustain transfer rates greater than most single hard drives can dish out. So why not roll your own enclosure?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16817145329
$18.99

Or if you really, really want firewire:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16817146035

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822148073
How about a 160GB for $329

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822146047
Or a 7200RPM 80GB for $145?

So ask yourself - Is a clear case and a Firewire 800 interface really worth the extra $100?

Re:Roll your own?

[tgibbs]

A power adapter? You've got to be kidding - Most external 2.5" HD enclosures can be powered by the USB bus itself.

Really? Which ones have you verified to work on a Mac laptop? The only one that I know of that will work off the USB bus of a Mac is the iPod.

Re:Roll your own?

[modecx]

I have a USB2 enclosure that I got ages ago that I put 20GB drive in, and it runs fine off of any Mac laptop I've hooked it to, with either USBv1 or 2, and that's directly to the computer, no hubs or anything inbetween. The enclosure itself also came with a wall wart, but I've never, ever used it. It's only there if you plan to use it with an unpowered port, of if it dosen't work with a port that will not supply enough power, like keyboards or monitor hubs sometimes do.

I don't remember what make it is, but it looks like a little alminum book. Yeah, it looks just like a hardback book--not the best styling decision I've ever ran across, but hey, it works, and well.

Spin up/down?

[beeblebrox]

What I'd really like to know is this: Are there any USB enclosures that support the SCSI spin up/down commands?

Everything I've tried so far doesn't, and forcing the drive to do an emergency head park every time you unplug it (or power down the computer it's attached to) can't be good.

Re:Ummm

[Tweekster]

um most people EXPECT to know where a reviewed item can be purchased. It just makes sense. it would be a crappy review if I wasnt even given the info of where the item is available. not to mention the site offers some specs that an interested party would want after reading the review.

Gameboy DS?

[Milamber_Cubed]

When was that released? Maybe you mean "Nintendo DS"?

Re:Sometimes it does care. Really.

[ewhac]

Hard drives don't care if you run them upside down, taco.

Uh, no. Some drives actually do care about mounting orientation. It varies on a drive-by-drive basis. You need to look carefully at the spec sheet to see which orientations are acceptable.

All drives will run "right side up" (usually with the circuit board facing downward). Nearly all drives will also run mounted vertically (on either long edge). There are a few drives that expressly discourage running upside down. Nearly all drives discourage mounting at anything other than 90 degree angles.

Schwab

NxUSB to get around 500ma problem

[billstewart]

I've seen a few devices out there that want multiple USB connections, not because they need more than 480Mbps of data, but because they want more power than a single USB cable provides.

I'm not sure that really exists

[blorg]

AFAIK basically all laptop drives will require near 1A for spin-up, although they will use significantly less for continued operation. Certainly I don't think there are any that will spin up on 500mA (although I may be wrong.) Some USB ports will manage this although it is by no means guaranteed. My experience is with TravelStar drives (a 4200RPM one at 1A followed by a 7200RPM at 1.1A.)

More uses for 2.5" USB enclosures

[billstewart]

There are other things you can do with 2.5" USB2 enclosures besides just adding extra portable storage to your PC. For me the big issue was data recovery from a dying PC - previous generations, including IDE and SCSI in the PC world, were really inconvenient, but USB is so widely supported that the next time my laptop dies, I can pop the disk into my $29 enclosure and connect it to my other PC. (The price is real, but fortunately the laptop decided to stop overheating.)

So for me, an enclosure that comes with the drive built in and hard to access is going to be overpriced compared to a 3.5" high-capacity drive, it's not going to do what I need for recovery.

Of course, you Mac laptop people can just close the lid and tell the laptop to act like a Firewire enclosure and plug it into your other Mac, so you can avoid the problems the rest of us have :-)

Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Luddite]

Yeah, I agree

I actually like to see product reviews, but this one's a pretty ho-hum item. and I can't see much to recommend it. I posted because I get kind of annoyed with the folks screaming "slashvertisement" everytime they see a product review.

I think Taco was just filling space here, not shilling anything.

laterz

[__aapspi39]

Why shouldn't slashdot put forward adverts for any product that comes along? It's a lot better than going over the intelligent design debate and the reasons why America should avoid slipping back into the dark ages, isn't it? At least it beats discussing computers and having a squad of Apple fanboys shouting and modding down anyone who doesn't think that a computer is a profound and spiritual way to express ones self, as opposed to a useful symbolic processing device. Maybe there just isn't enough science or technology going on in the world to justify a place for highlighting and discussing it- thats it! Bye.

Re:Ummm

[tgibbs]

Well, there's a link to Other World Computing (the only link in the article). So while it may not be a great endorsement of this device, the article is CERTAINLY an advertisement for OWC.

Since when is an acknowledgment attached to a rather negative review an advertisement?

Pimpin' ain't easy

[Ohreally_factor]

Unless it's for OWC!

I second your opinion. I've been buying stuff from OWC for maybe six years, and I've always been happy with both the products and the service. I have two of the "On-the-go" drives (FW 400s), and they've performed as expected and have even saved my ass at least once. I can't speak to USB or FW 800 versions, but the FW 400s use bus power without problem. These are great external drives if you use a laptop, and don't want to carry around a large external and a power brick.

They also have a mac-centric forum called Mac Resource Forum, appropriately enough, where the community is pretty helpful.

I've had the privilege of meeting Larry (the owner), Jamie (the manager) and many of the crew at MWSF, and I've been further privileged to have dinner with them all twice.

One further exceptional thing about OWC: Ryan Rempel, an OWC employee, wrote XPostFacto, which allows OS X to run on older Macs not supported by Apple. XPostFacto is open source, and its creation has been supported by OWC.

If I wasn't an OWC fanboy

[Ohreally_factor]

I'd disagree. Why does Taco need filler. Slow news day?

I think this is a not so subtle attempt to get manufacturers and vendors to send more loot "for review".

But I like OWC an awful lot, so I'll let this one slide.

Sorry, useless gadget.

[Nazo-San]

All I can say is I'll stick with just grabbing a standard IDE drive and an IDE->USB2 case for it. Good grief though, on newegg, you can grab a drive that does all this does at about $160+S&H for a 160GB. I may not speak for everyone here, but, I say I'd pay $10 and give up not having to have an extra power plug for the extra storage. ( Here's the particular product that caught my eye: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822154068 )

I don't like the idea of relying on an iPod or similar product for storage though. They aren't really designed for it. Really they are meant to toss in all your music files and I guess now video files, not to use for routine backups or large transfers across systems, or other similar things. Personally, I rather prefer the idea of those cheap little pocket-sized USB mini drives. I think they've reached as much as 6GB total these days, but, the reasonably priced ones are 2GB, which is still 1GB or so more that I would ordinarily need to move between systems where a network cable wouldn't do and I don't want to write a DVDR. Heck, flash drives are up to 4GB and maybe beyond, albiet a lot slower (then again, more reliable.)

Looks like a flop product to me. That price will surely kill them. Plus most people who'd actually use a thing like this will gravitate more towards either better portability smaller sizes or less portability with external plug and all holding a lot more space for the cost.

Re:Ummm

[Vellmont]

Since when is an acknowledgment attached to a rather negative review an advertisement?


I guess since time began. OWC is a retailer, not a hardware producer.

Re:Ummm

[Vellmont]

um most people EXPECT to know where a reviewed item can be purchased.


That's funny. I don't see any links or ads for reviewed products in Consumer Reports. I also don't see any ads for where I can see a movie right in the middle of a movie review. The link to OWC is an advertisement. I'm not even saying there's something wrong with that, but if you don't see what it is, you're blind.

Re:Ummm

[tgibbs]

I guess since time began. OWC is a retailer, not a hardware producer.

OWC sells a line of OWC branded products, including the drive in question. I imagine that they do not manufacture the components of the products that they sell under their own brand name, but this is hardly unusual among hardware producers.

use it replacement for existing internal HD

[Limited Vision]

This is an effective way to get a bigger HD for the ol' PowerBook and give the old one a place to live.

The 100 GB in my 17' PB was full so rather than buy a naked 160GB, I bought the 160GB FW800 cased version. I removed it from the casing, took out the 100GB inside the PB, replaced it with the 160B, and put the 100GB back in casing.

I now have a nice backup 100GB hard drive that I can travel with and even boot off of without needing a power supply. Otherwise, I can keep it at home and attach it to my server. This has the added bonus of giving my home access to my music library and other files on the home server as well.

OWC is horrible!

[Anonymous Coward]

Every order I have ever placed with OWC has been miss handled. Packages are poorly packed, or incomplete. Emails about item specs are often not returned for several days. Calls are not returned, emails about your missing item aren't sent. Support, isn't. If something is wrong, I can guarantee that they will drag it out past the 30 day return window, or just say that that item isn't covered by the that policy.

Patience.

[eddy]

> If there were good eSATA laptops, it'd be a contender. But, there aren't.

Just a matter of time. "tick, tock"