available firewire 2.5" external hard drives

hey guys, i have been doing a lot of research and i am looking for a 320-500gb 2.5" external hard drive, unless a 3.5" provides a lot more performance. i have a MacBook Pro and would like to take advantage of the firewire ports, so i am looking for a complete (enclosure and HDD) external that has firewire ports and even better than that would be ones that have firewire 800, i originally thought it would of been the 5400rpm speed that would of been the bottleneck for these drives but i saw benchmarks showing the great advantages of firewire over usb, im not really interested in a esata though.

anyway the only 2.5" externals i have seen with firewire 800 are the Western Digital Passport Studio drives and i am just wondering if there are any others, especially if they are cheaper, i will be buying the drive off eba

thanks guys

ps. im planning on running windows off it, am i going to see any sort of performance hit, is firewire 800 possibly faster than sata?

 

I would never attempt to run Windows off an external HDD for numerous reasons. Too risky.

 

Can you tell why it is risky?

 

It's a bit more complex, I suppose. And you can pull out the cable!

I think the WD is the cheapest 2.5" option. If you can use a 3.5", it might be better; not so much for performance, more resistance to overheating and drive longevity.

You will take a big performance hit, though not as much as USB2. eSATA is lot faster than FW800. It might be worth considering getting an eSATA drive and card for your MBP.

Vista or XP?

 

XP, i will be using it as a secondary OS, OS X being my primary OS. But i will be using XP primarily for gaming so if there is any performance hit i will just use the internal HDD.

i think i will just go with FW800 as oppose to eSATA just because it'll be easier for me. so are there any other FW800 drives?

I'm not too worried about overheating it's only a 5400rpm drive. and 2.5" will be a lot better for portability than 3.5" even though i wont be moving it around much.

 

. . Hi: can recommend from firsthand use the 2.5" Seagate Freeagent Go for Mac [320GB] model - this is Firewire800 & USB 2.0, with cable adaptors for Firewire400 plus buspower from a second USB port for USB use.

Good quality HDD, styled & made from materials to match a Macbook Pro nicely, & has working powersave in my MBP running OSX 10.5.5

Attached is a quick benchtest using the current version of Intech's Speedtools - you'll see this HDD needs its 1394b interface . . . .

 

the freeagent does look like a good option couldnt find any cheapish ones on ebay though, still looking into the passport studio option though, anyone know of any benchmarks comparing the 2.

 

. . I have no idea whatsoever what you would think of as cheap~ish, nor where you live: in the US the Freeagent Pro for Mac 320GB is sold by Amazon w/ free shipping for $163 - I bought mine in the UK for a bit less than this, around £100.

[Edit] the 2.5" Passport Studio 320GB appears to be 1394a/USB . . . these 160GB-per-platter 2.5" external HDDs need 1394b or eSATA if you're hoping to see their full performance - & 1394b is obv superior since it provides bus-power.

. . if you can find the 500GB My Passport Studio, this has 1394a/1394b, has a dual-250GB-platter HDD, & looks OK; early models of the 500GB Freeagent Pro for Mac are being supplied with the low-performing Samsung triple-platter HDD

 

i live in australia, hoping to pick a 500gb up for ~$250 AUD (~$165 USD).
hmm so by the sounds of things the WD passport studio drives are the way to go?

 

. . well, it is up to you & your priorities: the product design of the new Seagates is natty & IMPO quite a bit better, esp if you are a Macbook Pro owner. I dunno which bridgeboard ICs these things use [some are crap], but the one in the Seagate appears OK for 1394b use.

If buying today; the WD 500 or the Seagate 320 . . tomorrow/next month I would expect the Seagate to ship with (instead of the stopgap 3x166GB Samsung) the 2x250GB platter version of their 5400.6; which is likely to be at least as good as the competing WD product & on past record likely better for heat/power/noise.