[iBook] Firewire External Hard Drive Power

[charlesp at ksu.edu]

Quoting G Henry Taylor <henrytaylor at att.net>:

> Depends on the size of the drive. Not the capacity, the size. My 2
> 1/2"
> FW drive is powered via the FW connection from my Pismo or iBook. A
> friends 3 1/2" external FW Drive needs a power brick to work. Not
> sure
> this is universal, but I've yet to see an exception.
>
> Henry

I too, have a firewire, bus-powered drive. It also is a 2.5" drive. The
brand is VST Smartdisk. I recently "upgraded" the drive mechansim by
(accidently) dropping the drive and breaking it. The original drive was
a 30Gb and I upgraded to a 40Gb for about $75. I had to take the
enclosure apart to get to the mechanism, which (the enclosure) was
glued in places and took a bit of finesse. When shopping for a
replacement drive, I found drives for around $75 for 40Gb and
enclosures for about $35-$50. So, for a bit over $100 (US), I have a
bus-powered firewire drive. It also operates faster (5200 RPM) than the
original--another bonus (still looking for those silver-linings after
dropping and breaking the thing).

I don't know about the power issue vis a vis USB and the iBook. I've had
more luck and fewer problems with firewire and external drives than
USB.

Charles Pearce
charlesp at ksu.edu