[iBook] Firewire External Hard Drive Power

[Scott Warren]

It all really depends on the drive and enclosure.  I bought a cheap  
enclosure with both USB and FW ports.  the drive only gets power when  
plugged into the USB so if I want to use firewire, I still have to  
plug in the usb power cable.  The USB power comes from a 2 headed usb  
cable so I have to have 2 ports to make it work... either 2 usb or 1  
usb and 1 firewire.
I also have the smartdisk that is powered off the firewire 400 or 800  
ports.  Works like a champ but no USB option.  Not all enclosure are  
the same so do your homework on the one you are looking at.

-- Scott


On Jan 5, 2006, at 7:46 AM, charlesp at ksu.edu wrote:

> 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
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