• expired

1TB portable hard drive *Firewire800* $149 [COTD]

80

149 bucks isn't the cheapest around for 1tb, but it does have firewire 800 so i might be good for the mac crowed.

Related Stores

Catch.com.au
Catch.com.au
Marketplace

closed Comments

  • How much do these things cost normally?

  • Not a bad buy (http://reviews.cnet.com/external-hard-drives/iomega-ego-blac…). 5400rpm, but most 2.5" 1TB drives are (except that new Seagate Constellation for $290-odd).

    Considering the OWC FW800 chassis is $70 (ex. shipping, http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSTG800U2K/), this is great for those who need the space in FW800 format. Might buy one!

  • +10

    Can I -1 for COTD?

    • +1. I have been buying from COTD since they started and never had any major issue. The last mystery item was a really bad move. The should have asked for $4 donation instead.

      • My one purchase for mystery item was really not a good experience. They sent rubbish they didn't want. I have since not purchased any mystery item. Delivery takes a while.

        • What did you receive? I still haven't got mine yet.

        • ca internet security 2010

  • +1

    FW800 is the faster than USB2, though slower than eSATA, USB3 and Thunderbolt. I don't know how readily available FW800 is on non-macs, though I know eSATA is only on the higher end machines while USB3 is still quite rare and Thunderbolt doesn't have any devices on the market yet.

    For me right now this is probably the best thing available until some Thunderbolt compatible enclosures/cables etc appear on the market.

    • Not many computers non mac notebooks have firewire anymore. The only ones I know of currently in the market are the Toshiba P750 (same as the A660 but metal) and the Dell Studio XPS. As far as I know HP have ditched the firewire port (not to mention the docking station and express card slot) from their DV6 series. The last one to have them was the DV6-2119Tx and the DV6-2113tx.

  • I'm so sick of FireWire. Every single bus-powered FireWire device I've owned has burned out. The plugs are designed so poorly and handle so much current that they don't last. Try plugging in a FireWire device with the lights off, watch the spark! When I worked at an AppleCentre pretty much the only hardware-related thing that went wrong with motherboards was burned out FW ports.

    I found out by accident that the FireWire ports on PowerBook G4 computers put out 12 volts when turned on, but if you put them to sleep or shut them down the ports put out a full 27 volts direct from the power supply. I had two hard drives that were so hot you couldn't touch them, so I took out the multimeter and measured unregulated power coming straight out of the power adapter, straight into the FireWire ports. The FW standard is supposed to handle up to 30V which is a pretty stuipid voltage to specify considering almost all electronic regulators only work up to about 24V, and that's at the extreme end of the scale with active cooling. FW also supports up to 1.5 amps at 30V, which is 45 Watts through wire a little bit thicker than human hairs - it's just destined to fail. Terrible design!

    This is a decent price if you need FW800 though, considering you usually need to replace them regularly anyway.

    • Hopefully Thunderbolt will be more reliable.

  • iMac apparently requires Firewire 800, as earlier/slower versions won't work.

    • You can get firewire 400 to 800 adapters and cables for plugging old drives into newer computers

  • +1

    Firewire costs more because the firewire processing is done on the device. USB uses your CPU.

  • +1

    Been waiting for one of these (to put Windows7 on an external drive). Thanks for the heads-up!
    Nice to have the extra ruggedness as well for travel.

Login or Join to leave a comment