eSata enclosures

texvanwinkle

texvanwinkle

Well-known member
I've found some older threads (two years or more) discussing various dual-bay enclosures that seem to work with the MacBook Pro, but what I'm finding repeatedly now in other forums and retail websites are complaints about incompatibilities between MBP's and the eSata expresscards.

What expresscards and enclosures are people using these days that they've had good experience with over the last year or two? (My wife's MBP is a 2007 dual-core 2.4.)

Thanks,

Clint
 
If you decide to use systems from Firmtek, then go 100% Firmtek: Express Card or SpyderHub and the Firmtek housings.

Mix/match is very likely to cause problems.

Otherwise their systems are very reliable and fast.
 
DCSensui said:
If you decide to use systems from Firmtek, then go 100% Firmtek: Express Card or SpyderHub and the Firmtek housings.

Mix/match is very likely to cause problems.

Otherwise their systems are very reliable and fast.
Click to expand...

exakt, when mixing diffrent products, it likeley to fail. Ore higher risk.
 
DCSensui said:
If you decide to use systems from Firmtek, then go 100% Firmtek: Express Card or SpyderHub and the Firmtek housings.

Mix/match is very likely to cause problems.

Otherwise their systems are very reliable and fast.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I did look at the Firmtek equipment. Quite a bit pricier than I assumed I'd have to spend, but I can't find many if any reviews of the lower priced enclosures. I find it hard to believe a solid, bare dual-bay enclosure can't be had for $100-150, but I'll be danged if I can find any reviews for such.
 
I've used Firmtek for a couple years. I've been very happy with the performance. I purchased an extra pair of carriages for extra HHDs. I always power down my system to swap drives even though they claim "hot swappable". Be careful with the Expresscard. It can come out of the computer fairly easily. Also I wish the power cord on the chassis was more secure. Either one comes out and your system is a hairs breath away from a hard crash. Yes, macs have an equivalent to the "blue screen of death". Having said that, I've used the Firmtek every day for two years and been very happy.
 
Tex - I have the same 2.4 MBP and just ordered the same setup that someone else outlined on another thread. He says it works beautiful with multiple Prores 422 codec streams in editing. I will get the setup soon and perhaps edit a lot of HD streams on top of eachother just to give her a test. If you want I can post back here when I get it all setup. Let me know
Heres the link to the outline of his sytem specs - http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1622082&postcount=4
 
I hot swap the Firmtek drives all the time but my system is using an internal host adapter in a Mac Pro tower.

I also count slowly to 10 before physically removing the drives from the enclosures to avoid jostling them while the drives are still spinning.

There are about two dozen SATA HDD's sitting on my shelf. Not a single one has gone bad yet (Hitachi/IBM SATA drives), and I've used many of them for several years.
 
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