Hard Drive Dock

[ehrawn]

I need to replace the external drive connected to a Mac Mini that houses my music library with a larger volume. It seems like about every two years I need to double the capacity. To save a little cash in the long term, I am considering replacing the typical firewire-connected external drive with a dock and an internal hard drive. Does anyone have any experience with these? I’m curious about performance, noise, and longevity for a setup that would be constantly connected/always on. I don’t know if the docks have the same sort of power management or life-extending features that a normal external drive has. What is the disadvantage of this kind of setup?

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi ehrawn - I wouldn't go down the dock road. Docks are usually meant for quick connect/disconnect activities. Check out the CASH List for a great external housing that uses the Oxford 934 chipset.

 

[ehrawn]

I saw the Onnto enclosures on the C.A.S.H. list and it got me thinking. I prefer a backup scheme, as opposed to RAID, because sometimes I get a little delete-happy. Right now, I do this with two external hard drives. The Onnto 2-drive enclosure run as a JBOD could accomplish this, too. My concern, though, is the power management. Does anyone have experience with this enclosure? The website mentions spinning down the drives with the computer, but only for RAID 0 and 1. I want to be able to leave this thing on and forget about it, but not if the drives will be spinning at max RPM constantly.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I just read the manual for the two disc enclosure, assuming that's the one you are interested in, and it didn't mention the RAID 0 or 1 requirement for spin-down of the drives. However, I'm pretty sure the guys at Oyen Digital know what they are talking about. Here is a link to the manual if anyone is interested.

 

Also, will RAID 0 work for you rather than JBOD?

 

 

http://www.onnto.com.tw/download/usersmanuals/DataTale2Bay_UM.pdf

 

[ehrawn]

Here's where I saw the reference:

http://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/RS-M2QO.html

 

"HDD spins down when host computer enters sleep mode. HDD spins up when host system wakes up. (RAID 0 & 1 only)"

 

RAID 0 doesn't work because if one drive fails, I lose all of the data.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

You could pick up two of the single enclosures. They will work the same as JBOD on the two disc enclosure. If you daisy chain them via FireWire there is virtually no difference and they only consume one port.

 

[breadvan]

Not sure if this is useful, anyway I use a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo in RAID 1 with 2 x 1.5TB drives, the Duo is DNLA compliant, PC and MAC compatible, has harddisc spin down, also has proprietary X-RAID technology which allows users to swap to bigger hard drives without rebuilding the RAID.

 

[ehrawn]

I was trying to eliminate one power cord and one cable. My ther thinging was that, when the next upgrad came around, I could reconfigure the 2 disk enclosure to a raid 0 and just buy another drive. Two enclosures with thier separate powere management might be the way to go. Thank for your help.

 

[ehrawn]

Just noticed something looking at the drives from Seagate. The Freeagent Desk uses the same oxford chipset as the Onnto enclosure.

 

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=203731&NewLang=en

 

If the chipset is the most important factor in chosing a drive/enclosure, what am I gaining by getting the Onnto enclosure, other than the ability to choose my own drive?

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi ehrawn - In addition to selecting your own drive and upgrading it whenever you want the Onnto enclosure has multiple interfaces that are much better than just one USB 2.0 port.

 

[ehrawn]

Freeagent Desk for Mac has firewire 800, as well. I don't use esata, so not a big deal. Upfront cost for Seagate drive is a bit less than going the Onnto/interal drive route, but, it is cheaper to replace an internal drive than an external- which should happen in about 2 years at the rate my media library is growing. If the Onnto enclosure is built to last, it may be the better option. Chris, are you using one of these enclosures, currently, and for how long? I would like to get some real world assessments of the build quality.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I'm using its predecessor with the Oxford 924 chipset. I've had it for years and it works flawless. I do a lot of testing with different drives etc... and this enclosure has held up wonderfully through all the drive changes and traveling.

 

But if the FreeAgent suits you best I see no need for the Onnto :~)