Oxford 911 drive case?? Canada Computers

jdurston · Mar 29th, 2005, 11:34 AM

I am going to upgrade my iBook's hard drive. I would like to put the old one in an external firewire case. I was looking at canadacomputers but none of the drive cases stated whether or not they used an oxford 911 firewire bridge. Most did indicate Mac compatibility.

Also, I've heard that firewire 400 has a better throughput than USB 2.0 even thought the advertised speeds seem to disagree. Is this the case.

If anyone knows where to get a good external notebook drive case let me know.

Josh

Heart · Mar 29th, 2005, 12:01 PM

http://www.dvico.com/pcx-2.html

Never let me down! Might be a little hard to find and a little more costly but a sexy little enclosure available in iBook white or Powerbook Aluminum.

iLabmAn · Mar 29th, 2005, 06:11 PM

I bought an aluminum case made by BYTECC from Canada Computers a little while ago. There was one with the Oxford 911 Chipset.

Lawrence · Mar 29th, 2005, 06:45 PM

I have one of the $49. BYTECC external 2.5" cases from Canada Computers,
It's never let me down, Works fine with both of my Mac's which are running 10.3.8

krs · Mar 29th, 2005, 07:42 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by jdurston
	I am going to upgrade my iBook's hard drive. I would like to put the old one in an external firewire case. I was looking at canadacomputers but none of the drive cases stated whether or not they used an oxford 911 firewire bridge. Most did indicate Mac compatibility. Also, I've heard that firewire 400 has a better throughput than USB 2.0 even thought the advertised speeds seem to disagree. Is this the case. If anyone knows where to get a good external notebook drive case let me know. Josh

I'm looking for a firewire case for a 3.5" drive and also for a DVD burner so I just did a bit of research on the net.
Sounds like the Prolific chip set that many of the combined firewire/USB2 cases use is a disaster when used in the firewire mode; USB2 is fine with that chip set.
Since I need firewire - no USB2 ports on the emac I want to use it with, I'm also specifically looking for a case with the Oxford chip set.
I think it's pretty safe to say if it's not advertized as having the Oxford chip set it probably doesn't. I would just go to the manufacturer's website of the enclosures you're interested in and look.
I'm considering the Bytecc ME-320F which does have the Oxford chip set; the same enclosure with both firewire and USB 2.0 does not - it uses a combination firewire/USB 2.0 chip set from Prolific.
One other note - a couple of people on the net have posted that the enclosure product (not Bytecc) was advertized as having the Oxford 911 chip set but in fact they didn't. Probably not a bad idea to check before you leave the store just in case.

As far as speed is concerned - USB 2.0 is spec'd higher but these are peak burst rates. Apparently firewire is more stable and has better long term throughput. Practically there doesn't seem to be much difference but for Macs people always recommend to go the firewire route.
Pity because firewire cases are twice the price of USB 2.0 only cases.

gundamguy · Mar 29th, 2005, 07:50 PM

Don't cheap out and try some no name jobbie usb2 case, Enermax and Kangaroo included. most have Gensys gl chipsets that well.. arent compatible with anything. Seems to work the first time for a few mins but as soon as you try to transfer a large file it never works right again. We were all wondering at work why alot of these enclosures we had weren't working, took them apart and low and behold same chips.

Gunner · Mar 30th, 2005, 08:24 AM

I bought one of these about 6 weeks ago and it has been running great. Our IT guy at work bought one and it has been running non stop for the 6 weeks. I turn mine on and off as teh fan is a little noisey. I have mine running on my Mac at home and he has his running under XP here at the office. There is an on/off switch on it that is not shown in the pictures. It seems a little flimsy when you are putting the drive in it, but it only took me about 5 minutes to get it up and running. It looks like they have a 2.5" one as well.

Gunner.

gmark2000 · Mar 30th, 2005, 09:23 AM

As stated, Canadian Computers provides some good links to the manufacturers' websites where you can find out what chipset is being used.

I will echo that you should stay away from the Prolific chipset as it has trouble with the sustained data traffic. Always look for the Oxford Semiconductor controller in a firewire drive.

krs · Mar 31st, 2005, 10:43 AM

I have sent emails to two manufacturers to find out which chip set they use in their firewire enclosures.

Bytecc lists the Oxford set on their ME-320F model web page but says nothing on the ME-340F model. Their tech support came back the same day telling me that the ME-340F model also uses the Oxford chip set but their ME-340U2F model does not. I suspected that, unfortunately most dealers carry the ME-340U2F. They didn't tell me which chip set was in the ME-340U2F - only that it wasn't oxford.

I also emailed Ultra since I like the enclosure that was on sale at TigerDirect. Their answer took a few days and then they sent me this:

	Quote:
	Thank you for your email Unfortunatley we are unable to provide you with that information.

You can draw your own conclusion from that reply.

krs

Lawrence · Mar 31st, 2005, 11:07 AM

I have one of these hard drive cases
Originally it was built by FannerTech/Speeze but it looks like FannerTech/Speeze
has been bought out by another company named Masscool.

I'm not sure what the chipset is but I have a 7200 rpm/200 gb/8 mb cache drive
in it attached via Firewire to my Sawtooth and it's running fine.