What is the best firewire portable hard drive?

thelastmelon

Registered
I'm looking for suggestions on which is the best firewire (or firewire usb combo) portable external hard drive to hook up to a relatively new powerbook G4 (has firewire 400 and 800).

Here are the criteria
It has to be portable (small - 2.5' size)
Around 60 - 80gb of space
Doesnt need an aditional power supply or extra cables
Must mount / be recognized fine with a powerbook g4

Can anyone recommend a brand? or model? Anyone been really happy or impressed with their hard drive?

I'm coming out of a bad relationship with my completely unmountable (lack of power) usb 2.0 hard drive and want to make the right choice with the next one.

Thanks in advance for anyone's input!
Victoria
 
Hi Victoria,

eventhough my external HD isn't that portable I have a very good experience so far with my LaCie d2. check here for portable ones : http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10036
Also try and search the forum for some other advices.
I recall seeing some having trouble with the Porsche design ones ...... and you might find cheaper solutions but As far as I'm concerned quality comes with a price to pay for.

regards

Giorgio
 
I buy most of my hardware from OWC.
I currently have two external hard drives and they all work great.

They provide great customer service and have quality products.

OWC
 
Hello thelastmelon,

I purchased a LaCie Firewire 80 gig drive 2 years ago to store a backup of my files in a security deposit box at the local bank, in case of theft, fire or whatever.

The disc is very portable. The drive itself is probably 2.5 inch in diameter but the casing is 3 inches wide, 5 inches long and 5/8 inch thick, which fits snugly in the smallest security box available at the bank. It draws its power from the firewire port and no other power supply is needed. It mounts automatically on my G5 within a few seconds of connecting the firewire cable and it has worked flawlessly ever since. So much so that I went out and bought a second identical 80 gig drive for convenience sake a few months later. That way, I back up my stuff almost daily on one of the drives and, once a month, I switch discs, the one in the bank never being more than 30 days old.

As the size of my files outgrew the 80 gig capacity, I went out and purchased a 100 gig model which is presently enough to hold everything. I'm very happy with this arrangement and most likely so will you if you go that way. One must be aware, however, that BlueRay discs will soon be available and they might be an even better and cheaper solution in the near future.
 
Build your own. Buy a 60-80GB 2.5" hard drive of your choice and get an enclosure as well. Pop it together yourself and then format it with whatever FS you like. I have an HD-D4-U2FW (http://www.zynet.com.tw/product/ee/HD-D4.html) with a salvaged Fujitsu 30GB HDD in it (from an old laptop). Formatted with FAT32 and it works fine across Windows and Mac (I assume Linux would have no problems either, but I haven't tried).

It works from one USB2 port/cable if fully powered, but needs the additional included USB-to-power on my gf's iBook 500MHz G3. There's also a FW port on it if that tickles your fancy.
 
I have the hard drive of my Powerbook (changed it to bigger, 40 to 80 GB) plugged to a fw case, and used as a portable hard drive. :) so got a casing from fry's for like $ 25 and it's just so comfy thing to have.. so often instead of bringing the powerbook around, carrying just the hard drive. :)
 
Hi--I have a 150 GB Lacie and a 200 GB Maxtor both are protable, but the Maxtor is larger, so I would suggest the Lacie. They have some Terabyte hard drives that are verty small. Check out the Lacie web site for more. So far, both have worked well. Maxtor has Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 and Lacie has Firewire 800 and USB 2. Hope this helps!
 
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