Juelie McLean writes: >My son would like an external hard drive: 7200 rpm, 120Gigs, >Firewire. All the ones I have checked on seem to average in the >$250-270 range.....but they all seem to be pretty much alike in their >descriptions.... > >ALL USE THE SAME: >Bus Interface -- Firewire (IEEE 1394/Link Compliant, 2 ports)
That's what makes it a FireWire hard drive. >Capacity 120 Gigs That's the capacity your son specified. >Max Data transfer rate 400Mbps (50MB/sec) That's the theoretical maximum transfer rate for the FireWire specification. What you want to do is find some real throughput ratings for the drive you're buying. Best bet is to find a drive with an Oxford 911 bridge. >System Requirement Mac w/ fiirewire interface and OS 8.6+ That's the minimum Mac OS that supports FireWire. >Power supply 110v-240v auto switching external power adapter That's nearly universal for products with a world market. >Standard Mechanism: 7200rpm ATA/100 2 mb cache buffe Most 120 GB 7200 rpm drives have a 2 MB cache. A few have larger, and you will pay more for them. The larger cache is marginally helpful. For my part, I build my own. Pick an enclosure with the Oxford 911 chipset, pick a good drive value (IBM DeskStar, Western Digital, whatever), put 'em together, and they work every time. -- Dan Knight, president, Cobweb Publishing, Inc. <http://cobwebpublishing.com> <http://lowendmac.com> <http://digital-views.com> <http://digigraphica.com> <http://lowendpc.com> <http://reformed.net> Microsoft Windows instead of Unix? How 20th century! -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
