Re: Mac Mini and External Firewire Drives

["rb_ziggy" <rb.lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "noel_pilot" <HA@...> wrote:
>
> I'm looking to do something similar shortly, first thing to bear in
> mind is that I believe the mini only has Firewire 400, which should
> increase the availability of drives.
> Cheers
> Noel
> Happy New Year!
>=20

Thanks for the feedback on this.  I'd missed that nugget of the mini
being only Firewire 400 (hadn't actually thought about it really).

Having now looked into things further, I think I'll aim for one of the
new 1Tb drives.  Probably the Samsung Spinpoint F1 as I've been very
happy with Samsung in the past and it looks like these may run a bit
cooler than the alternatives.=20=20

Enclosures/caddies seem to be a bit harder (tried Span and
Overclockers) as single drive SATA combined with Firewire are a bit
sparse or get to the cost point of going for a dual drive enclosure.=20
So I turned my thoughts to USB2 instead (fw400 being sameish as USB2).
With a cheapish enclosure, it gives me flexibility to play around as
I can plumb it into the existing UMAX NAS box or direct to the Mini.=20
I can then upgrade to a more expensive twin enclosure/NAS solution
later.=20=20

I found this which seems to be potentially v good solution for big hot
drives at a decent (i.e. cheap) price:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=3DHD-000-AN&tool=3D3

This gives 1Tb for about =A3235.  Might not be quite the cheapest
solution but at the moment seems to be a good compromise between some
of the prepackaged proprietary solutions (at around the =A3180-200 mark)
(e.g. WD) that worry me over their tied in s/w, DRM and reliability vs
a full NAS soln.=20=20

The most reasonable SATA to Firewire solution I came up with was this
2 bay box.  They do a LAN/NAS version for just a bit more.=20=20

http://www.span.com/catalog/spanstor_system.php?products_id=3D16308&x=3D44&=
y=3D6

With one 1tb that comes in just over the =A3300 mark with a spare bay
for later.  However, I couldn't find any info on noise levels so if
anyone has any experience I'd be interested (seems to be v cheap for a
2 bay RAIDed NAS capable box).=20=20