What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
Take Advantage of Ridiculously Low Holiday Airfares view!
travelzoo.com - Flights $52 and up for Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year. But move on it now.
23 Comments
- betterth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13You've gotta be ***** me. "The fact that it's offered through OWC is simply icing on the cake".
I know you're typing from cue cards, possibly just copy pasting that on there.
But I mean, if you going to attempt to invade digg and post shameless product placements, could you have the decency to not make it painfully obvious?
Marked as lame, and both the submitter and first poster blocked. I don't want to see this kind of half-assed cheap spam on this site... - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Actually, OWC is a really good company - I've only bought a few things from them before but had a very good experience with returned RAM.
The original message might sound kind of astroturfy but I place a lot of value in being able to buy some cool new thing from a company I've liked in the past... I'm sure enough of us have been burned by other not so great companies to feel geniune relief at being able to buy somewhere that worked out well. Especially so with SATA stuff, where it seems like you still have to buy the more interesting/useful things from smaller companies.
On a side note I wish more companies would make these cases with trays to make it easier to swap drives out. - pensivewombat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There's just no reason to buy this when you can get a 350 gig Seagate HDD for $95, slap it into a fifty dollar enclosure and have the same product. You can get enclosures with eSATA and USB 2.0 pretty cheap. USB will garuntee universal connectivity, while eSATA is the speed king. There's really not much need for firewire.
- vuke69, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5" the pricing is pretty reasonable" "For your $230, you get quite a lot in the box"
What bizarre world does this guy live in where $130 ($230 minus $100 for the drive) is a good deal for an enclosure? The only way you will be getting $130 for a hard drive enclosure from me is if it has realistic sucking action. - austindkelly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3not new technology, can buy similar products on the internet.
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Uhm, nothing your average idiot couldn't find on New Egg in about fifteen seconds. How the ***** did this make it to the front page?
- palmer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Too bad USB sucks compared to FireWire.
- eleven, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm not going to guess at the posters intentions. SPAM or not, OWC is a very good supplier of Mac related peripherals and upgrades. I've upgraded many machines with parts from them. Sure you can find these types of enclosures at other locations - but enclosures with good build-quality are harder to find.
- TigerClaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1eSATA is the way to go, It pretty much beats USB 2.0 and Firewire out of the water with its 3.0G transfer rate.
- austindkelly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3i agree, i just bought the same thing off tigerdirect that is not an enclosure persay but connects either a 2.5,3.5,5.25in IDE/SATA hard drive to your option of usb/esata/firewire. and it was only $23.00 and some change.
i think he mentions something in the article about how expensive the esata, and firewire cables cost, but how does that make up for a $130 enclosue? - palmer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1External power supplies largely defeat the purpose of an external drive. You buy an external enclosure for data you want to transport, say between home and office. By now, everyone has plenty of standard detachable AC power cords in both locations.
But looking at these stupid designs, you realize that you won't be grabbing your drive and heading for the door. You'll be crawling under your desk to retrieve and then lug a big wad of wire and a transformer, along with the drive.
THAT SUCKS. - pgiessel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have had nothing but bad experiences every time I've ordered from Tigerdirect. Newegg is great, OWC is fantastic, CDW is not bad, but Tigerdirect is nothing but trouble.
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Icing on the cake", well, if you like getting screwed by obnoxious mail order bandits selling substandard crap that they don't stand behind. They completely ***** me on one of their "extended" capacity powerbook batteries. It held a charge for about half as long as my worn original battery, and when I asked them to refund my money, they refused.
Let my painful lesson be your gain. There are many other reputable firms out there on the web. Send your money to one of them instead. - nthomas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.wiebetech.com/products/toughtech.php
Weibetech costs a little more, but has the same features and is built like a tank. I have two for backups and love them. - palmer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"On a side note I wish more companies would make these cases with trays to make it easier to swap drives out."
Yes, that's a big problem. Even bigger problem:
EXTERNAL POWER BRICK. Largely defeats the purpose of an external drive. You can't just grab the drive and go, knowing that there are plenty of standard detachable AC power cords at your office or home. You have to crawl under your desk, unplug a damned AC adapter, and carry that wad of crap around with the drive.
Look at all the enclosures out there, and you find many of them are stupid "slimline" designs that are completely worthless without a giant power brick. - betterth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2There are companies that will sell diggs. You tell them how many diggs you want and they'll give it to you. It's something like 1-2$ a digg, too.
This is probably an example of a company attempting to generate hype but not understanding the benefits of hiring an ad agency that specializes in "undercover" online advertising. So the result is a half assed post on the front page of digg :p - macdude22, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'd hardly call it obvious spam. OWC is a very reputable company, with a lot of Grade A products and top notch customer support. I've bought a lot of stuff from these guys and they have always been great. Sure you can save a few bucks and buy some generic case that has a 50/50 chance of death or you can get a decent product at a decent price. For some the gamble of horrific generic hardware is fine, even fun to build their own stuff, I'll take a premade product like this with the support of the retailer any day.
- trypnotic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Obvious spam.
Besides, I can get a NAS drive for that price. I'd much rather have that. - OWCLarry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Our solutions are built for top notch operation from the ground up. Just the Oxford924 chipset costs more than an entire eSATA/USB2 only kit, never mind some of the very low cost FireWire solutions out there. But the result is a reliably, high performance solution. The power supply included with our solution is super robust as well.
Even if performance isn't your top concern for a FireWire or USB2 solution.... If not a port or bridge, it's a power supply that flakes out with the el-cheapo options out there.
eSATA is the best performance option where you can use it. Firewire 800 and 400 is the best for easy plug and play/disconnect and/or where eSATA isn't an option. USB2 is, in our opinion, a convenience interface that doesn't offer the consistency you get in data performance with FireWire or SATA.
Having said all that - our products have been geared more for the Macintosh end of the equation. We do have eSATA only solutions and will have more lower cost eSATA+USB2 (without FireWire) options comingin the future. FireWire, for good reasons, is highly preferred in the Mac market. That FireWire has been stock on every Mac model for the past 6 years has plenty to do with that, but it's also just a great interface.
eSATA rocks and just need the controller card - no bridge set needed for straight connection, so a well built enclosure + power adaper does the job economically there if you don't need the other interfaces... adding USB2 is very cheap as a secondary option for putting data off on systems that don't have the port available, etc.
I will acknowledge that a premium is paid to have the flexibility of our Quad interface solution. We also offer FW+USB2 without eSATA for about 25% less. Still - if looking for a reliable, performance solution with it all - the Elite-AL Quad is hard to beat.
This is my first time on Digg.com and for the record - we did not make the review post, etc. Neat to see, none the less. - wivern, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oddly enough, I was just shopping for a quad-interface enclosure about a month ago. I have some fairly unusual needs in that I work on multiple platforms with different requirements, so something with a reliable chipset and every connectivity option under the sun was a must. I went with a drive by G-Tech, though Wiebetech, mentioned above, was also a strong contender. Unfortunately, OWC didn't have this enclosure out at the time, or I would of gone with it. Others here have mentioned that you can go on Newegg.com and get something for a fraction of the price, but when you need something that works with any computer you can throw at it (for example, old Mac computers, where Firewire is your only choice really), you have to be a little more picky. I've also had chipset issues with some enclosures, especially those using the Prolific chips, from drives disappearing to not appearing at all when connected. Macs, again, seem to be especially susceptible to this. That's why you'll notice all the enclosures OWC makes uses Oxford chipsets, as they cater to the Mac crowd quite a bit.
Anyway, good review, and a great product for a niche consumer that needs a drive that truly can go *anywhere*.
The G-Tech drive I purchased can be found here:
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVEQ.cfm - MScrip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Here is an enclosure with a BUILT-IN power supply:
http://www.cooldrives.com/aluminum-hard-drive-enclosure-built-in-power-oxford-912-firewire-800.html
It has an Oxford chipset too! It's bigger than most, but the ability to grab and go would be worth it!
I wish there were more enclosures like this. - johnnyrotten, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Multiple interfaces can be a multi-edged sword. I own several dual-interface (USB/Firewire) drives, and the only problem I've had is with the Firewire interface going out. If you really have a situation where you need multiple interfaces, this is a nice idea, but I figure that the money I saved by switching to USB-only external drives has paid for new enclosures that kept my drives alive after the original enclosures failed.
- command-tab, on 10/12/2007, -21/+5This looks like some killer hardware! Every interface one could need, powered by the stable and mature Oxford controller chipset. The fact that it's offered though OWC is simply icing on the cake.
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is