Why in the frickin' heck is it so gosh darnit hard to find information about what chipsets are used on the bridgeboards of external enclosures?! I find it to be so aggravating!

Of course, I'm speaking generally, as there are some dealers and manufacturers who willingly let you know exactly what is inside, but in many cases, trying to find the chipset information is like trying to get the truth out of the Bush administration.

Yeah I am totally with you on this I've found for me anyways that the 1394A Initio chipset is a very good chipset with great compatibility.But as you say it's hard to find chipset info. Do you know of any firewire external enclosures besides Macally that have initio chipset???
For me the oxford has been nothing but problems. I even had problems with profilic, although he cypress USB works good but I really notice a big decrease in CPU usage when using 1394.
But as I asked before I can't find aan Initio chipset ex. enclosure with a built in fan. I bought the Macally PHC500BC & Modded it w/a fan. Cut a hole in the metal and installed a fan looks & works great but want another initio external and would like to avoid all the work if possible.

Acomdata also uses Initio, I believe.

See if you can still find any Maddog external enclosures. They use the Initio chipset and have a built in fan. They seem to have gone out of business recently. I bought one from Office Depot here when they have their clearance sales back in May.