From: "John Stoffel" <stoffel@lucent.com> Subject: [Wlug] Firewire/USB2.0 case recommendations? To: wlug@mail.wlug.org Message-ID: <16609.39769.539479.557377@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Folks,

Anyone know of a good FireWire and/or USB 2.0 external Hard Drive case? It's got to have a builtin powersupply and be durable. Any suggestions appreciated.

John

On a different, although related note, was wondering if anyone has had success with a Maxtor OneTouch brand external harddrive. I've read in howtos and in the kernel that you need to enable SCSI to access external USB 2.0/Firewire harddrives, and I assume that the Maxtor OneTouch will go off without a hitch. Right now you can get a 300 GB one off newegg for roughly $270, which is only about $20 more than the internal one. I was thinking of setting up a cron job to backup certain files to the external harddrive. Right now I have a RAID 5 system set up but think this is overkill; additionally, an external harddrive makes sharing between computers that aren't on a network much easier and is mobile to go with my laptop (setting up my laptop to play oggs through my car stereo is something I plan on doing, and instead of backing up my music collection on the laptop I could simply do it on the external harddrive and get a power inteverter to power it via the cigarette lighter plug). Additionally, I can just do striping over my harddrives instead of RAID 5'ing them and increase the preformance (why not? hehe). I was thinking about doing the external harddrive case deal but for backup at least this doesn't seem like a good alternative, since the external harddrive is only $20 more and the external harddrive case is much more than that. In less you plan on buying four or more harddrives to swap into the case, its not really cost effective. As for the long run, an external harddrive case isn't viable anywho, since a couple years from now its going to be nothing compared to the new ones, plus external harddrive technology will advance and speed up tremendously; look at Firewire 800 right now, already out, and one sees that 'investing' in an external harddrive case just doesn't pay out. Just my $.02.