Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:10:38 +0100 (BST) From: Andrew Gordon <arg-bsd@arg.me.uk> To: Paul Sommerhein <pms-freebsd@sommerhein.com> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Suggestions for an external firewire/USB drive Message-ID: <20030814155510.U37172-100000@server.arg.sj.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <20030814142808.GB253@sommerhein.com>
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On Thu, 14 Aug 2003, Paul Sommerhein wrote: > > After having read mixed user reviews > (http://reviews.designtechnica.com/user_reviews63.html) of the Maxtor > 5000XT / 5000DV, I have gotten a little bit uneasy of buying drives from > Maxtor. But if all other external drives available also use standard > IDE drives, designed for a stationary PC, I guess they also will suffer > from the same robustness problems described. The negative reviews there seem to be talking about one particular problem with the Maxtor Firewire drives - the (plastic) case has poor ventilation, causing the drive to run warm. This isn't a problem for me - I'm just using the drives for archiving, so run them for short periods. If I was running them 24x7, I'd look for something in a metal case. > 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. On the other hand, these plastic cases are probably _better_ for surviving the odd knocks of being carried around in a backpack/briefcase or whatever. Depending on your application, you might be more concerned about the size and weight of the drive and power supply. The Maxtor drives have quite large external power supply units (luckily, they seem to have stayed the same across several generations of the drive itself, so after buying a few drives you can leave a PSU at each PC and just carry the drives around). You can probably find a 2.5-inch enclosure and put a laptop drive in it, but this isn't going to give you the capacity of the huge desktop drives.
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