Hi

I'm about to get a NEC 3500A and I am also looking for an external enclosure. I am looking for one with Firewire and USB (Firewire more important). I want it to be reasonably quiet and £30-£40. It would be nice if it could go on its side. And I want one that doesn't just look like a brick, i.e. not just a rectanguar box - something that has some sort of design!

Any links would be nice. I will be purchasing from UK.

Thanks

It will be difficult to get a designer enclosure for that budget. All the ones I found for that budget did look like a brick.
Will the 3500 work at its potential in an external enlosure anyway?
ie, is firewire fastenough for 16x burns?
I put a 8x drive in a firewire enclosure ands it took 2 minutes longer to write discs compared with when it was installed as an internal drive

What sort of price do they go for. And what is a good one that does look like a brick?

From the NEC site, the max speed for DVD write at 16x is 22MB/s.

From a review of a Bytecc enclosure here:

So it seems it should work. 25 > 22!

This is slower than expected though, as USB 2 is supposed to be 60MB/s and Firewire 50MB/s!

And besides, Memeorex and other's are coming out with their own 16x external burners. So why would they come out with them if it would be the same speed as their 8x burners?

Anyway, is there at all the possibilty of plugging it into BOTH USB and Firewire at the same time to get a total of about 41MB/s? I knwo it's a strange thing to do, but it would be wonderful if it worked!

I have been looking at the one mentioned above and this Speeze one.

They both look like bricks, but the firts one looks a bit better. But the second one seems sturdier from the reviews.

EDIT: There's also this one. It's a bit more expensive, but it's made of alluminium and looks much better than the rest! Only problem is it seems to be quite noisy, which I don't really like.

One more thing: Is it possible to get a converter from 6-pin to 4-pin Firewire? The Bytecc comes with a 6-pin to 6-pin cable, but my laptop has a 4-pin port.

6 pin to 4 pin firewire adaptors and cable are available, and work too.
As for the transfer speeds, I was implying that the theoretical and actual speeds don't actually add up.
An 8 speed drive in my case doesn't actually write as fast in an external enclosure as the same drive does when placed as internal. I wonder whether the benefit of 16 x drive would be lost when used like this. I do hope I am wrong though, as I could do with one myself.

But can you plug in both USB and Firewire and get them to work together to make it faster? And what about the Memorex and other 16x external burners?

Do you know of a site that has them?

Over here someone burned a DVD at 16x and it did it in under 6 minutes. USB didn't work as well though.

Anyone?

It's going to be close, 16X (16 x 1350 = 21600 kB/s (21.09 MB/s)). The maximum rate for 1394A (firewire 400) is 400/8 =50 MB/s, but I think it will do it. The real data rates are probably similar to what was posted above. I have been able to write to two 8X DVD drives which were no in sync with firewire from a laptop without problems. I don't think that USB2, even thought it has higher specs on paper, will work at all. USB2 is just not fast enough in real life. The firewire is solid on my oxford 911 chipset and it just might do it. You will need to be sure to have your hard drive defragged and all the drivers working properly, but it will hopefully work. Again there are 1294B (firewire 800) and SATA boxes out there, but that is going to be expensive.

u know..... CROSS POSTING sucks..... My post is there though.

I ahd a look at the 1394b enclosures, but they are well over $100 (about $130-$180)! And besides, surely it would be limited by the onboard Firewire that would be 1394a on my laptop. I've got an HP nx7010.

I'm probably going to go for an enclosure with Firewire as well as USB. This is because my brothers pc only has USB, I think even USB 1 (In that case it will take forever, I know!), and so does my father's laptop (IBM T41).



Sorry about the double post - I just thiught it would be answered quicker in an already established thread.

I just bought directly from manufacturing the External Enclosure with Firewire and USB 2.0 only for USD 31.
Problem is that it is in China only.
You can check the website : http://www.yesuntec.com
and browse for HDD Box. Mine is YS-5025 model.

That one looks very nice - only problem is no Firewire, which I really need. USB seems far too slow for even 8x.

No, mine is YS-5025 but the connection is Combo (USB 2.0 plus Firewire) and cost only USD 31 (here in Zhuhai, China).
They can customize the connection.

Previously also using same model but with USB2.0 connection can burn the 4x DVD-R disc at real 4x (5540 kbps). Not check for 8x speed yet.

Problem is USB2.0 is that we have to make sure that their used the real driver that support USB2.0 as like my problem before. Enclosure is USB2.0 and mobo also USB2.0 (all hi-speed certificed), but when burn only max 2x speed for DVD (even use the 4x DVD-R). After install their original driver that come with Enclosure then everything is OK.

Is it the 3rd one here? If so, it says, USB only. Is there a model number I can search on google with? The YS-5025 returns no matches.

Is there any site in the UK that has this Bytecc external enclosure in stock. The only place I found was out of stock.

Thread closed in an attempt to consolidate and organize all the external enclosure threads. Please make any new posts in this new thread, where you can also read more about this consolidation. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions or concerns about this closure/consolidation. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.