OT: External HD Enclosures

Cliff Etzel wrote on 7/12/2007, 4:13 PM
I'm looking to add an external hard drive for editing on my laptop and want to know how important it is to have an Oxford 924 chipset in the enclosure for reliable data transmission.

Oyen Digital sells an enclosure that is designed specifically for digital content creators but wondered if the literature is a sales pitch for the cost of the enclosure or if there is something to be said for the chipset.

Also curious about the new crop of 250GB laptop drives in an enclosure if it would perform as well as a 3.5" drive.

TIA,

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 7/12/2007, 4:49 PM
Oxford chipsets are generally regarded as the most compaitble.

Regardless of which enclosure you get, my suggestion is to make sure it has some sort of fan for active cooling. Heat is a hard drive's worst enemy.

DV and HDV only require a data transfer rate of about 4 megabytes per second per stream, so pretty much any current technology hard drive, whether a 3.5" or 2.5" laptop drive is going to get the job done. Although 3.5" hard drives will typically have faster access times which will help if you're editing and previewing multiple video streams.

John
Laurence wrote on 7/14/2007, 8:43 AM
the 500 gig USB 2 Western Digital; Mybook is about $129 street. I just bought two of them and they work beautifully. They are actively cooled and I like that they automatically turn on and off with your computer as well.
riredale wrote on 7/14/2007, 8:54 AM
I have never tried an enclosure with the 924 chipset, but I do know that my old ADS Pyro enclosure with the Oxford 911 chip works great, though limited to 137GB (I think).

I also know that Newegg is going to send a hitman to my house to shoot me if I buy and then return any additional external enclosures. For the past year I have been trying to find a 5.25 external enclosure (so I can install a drive caddy) that works. Some Bytecc enclosures on Newegg are gorgeous in design, with fan and an interenal power supply, but they all use a Prolific chipset, which works great--for about 30 seconds. Then it hangs. Sigh.
Cliff Etzel wrote on 7/14/2007, 9:14 AM
Well, after searching and reading as well about the prolific chipsets, I settled on the Oyen Digital enclosure (supports eSata, Firewire and USB 2.0). I'm installing a Seagate 7100.10 320GB sata drive for editing on my laptop. Should be more than enough to edit SD footage with.

I have a feeling these guys are the ones to go to from now on for enclosures due to having the Oxford chipset - I have yet to find another external enclosure that has these chipsets.

Cliff Etzel
bluprojekt
DCV wrote on 7/18/2007, 9:57 AM
I highly recommend Wiebetech enclosures. They use Oxford chipsets and have a variety of enclosures and drive docking devices. I have 3 Fire800 enclosures that have been running almost 24/7 for 3 years now without a hitch.

<a href=http://www.wiebetech.com> Wiebetech </a>