# Oxford 911 drive case?? Canada Computers



## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

I am going to upgrade my iBook's hard drive. I would like to put the old one in an external firewire case. I was looking at canadacomputers but none of the drive cases stated whether or not they used an oxford 911 firewire bridge. Most did indicate Mac compatibility. 

Also, I've heard that firewire 400 has a better throughput than USB 2.0 even thought the advertised speeds seem to disagree. Is this the case. 

If anyone knows where to get a good external notebook drive case let me know.

Josh


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## Heart (Jan 16, 2001)

*Momobay by Dvico*

http://www.dvico.com/pcx-2.html

Never let me down! Might be a little hard to find and a little more costly but a sexy little enclosure available in iBook white or Powerbook Aluminum.


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## iLabmAn (Jan 1, 2003)

I bought an aluminum case made by BYTECC from Canada Computers a little while ago. There was one with the Oxford 911 Chipset.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

I have one of the $49. BYTECC external 2.5" cases from Canada Computers,
It's never let me down, Works fine with both of my Mac's which are running 10.3.8


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

jdurston said:


> I am going to upgrade my iBook's hard drive. I would like to put the old one in an external firewire case. I was looking at canadacomputers but none of the drive cases stated whether or not they used an oxford 911 firewire bridge. Most did indicate Mac compatibility.
> 
> Also, I've heard that firewire 400 has a better throughput than USB 2.0 even thought the advertised speeds seem to disagree. Is this the case.
> 
> ...


I'm looking for a firewire case for a 3.5" drive and also for a DVD burner so I just did a bit of research on the net.
Sounds like the Prolific chip set that many of the combined firewire/USB2 cases use is a disaster when used in the firewire mode; USB2 is fine with that chip set.
Since I need firewire - no USB2 ports on the emac I want to use it with, I'm also specifically looking for a case with the Oxford chip set.
I think it's pretty safe to say if it's not advertized as having the Oxford chip set it probably doesn't. I would just go to the manufacturer's website of the enclosures you're interested in and look.
I'm considering the Bytecc ME-320F which does have the Oxford chip set; the same enclosure with both firewire and USB 2.0 does not - it uses a combination firewire/USB 2.0 chip set from Prolific.
One other note - a couple of people on the net have posted that the enclosure product (not Bytecc) was advertized as having the Oxford 911 chip set but in fact they didn't. Probably not a bad idea to check before you leave the store just in case.

As far as speed is concerned - USB 2.0 is spec'd higher but these are peak burst rates. Apparently firewire is more stable and has better long term throughput. Practically there doesn't seem to be much difference but for Macs people always recommend to go the firewire route.
Pity because firewire cases are twice the price of USB 2.0 only cases.


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## gundamguy (Mar 2, 2004)

Don't cheap out and try some no name jobbie usb2 case, Enermax and Kangaroo included. most have Gensys gl chipsets that well.. arent compatible with anything. Seems to work the first time for a few mins but as soon as you try to transfer a large file it never works right again. We were all wondering at work why alot of these enclosures we had weren't working, took them apart and low and behold same chips.


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## Gunner (Sep 8, 2003)

I bought one of these about 6 weeks ago and it has been running great. Our IT guy at work bought one and it has been running non stop for the 6 weeks. I turn mine on and off as teh fan is a little noisey. I have mine running on my Mac at home and he has his running under XP here at the office. There is an on/off switch on it that is not shown in the pictures. It seems a little flimsy when you are putting the drive in it, but it only took me about 5 minutes to get it up and running. It looks like they have a 2.5" one as well.

Gunner.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

As stated, Canadian Computers provides some good links to the manufacturers' websites where you can find out what chipset is being used.

I will echo that you should stay away from the Prolific chipset as it has trouble with the sustained data traffic. Always look for the Oxford Semiconductor controller in a firewire drive.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I have sent emails to two manufacturers to find out which chip set they use in their firewire enclosures.

Bytecc lists the Oxford set on their ME-320F model web page but says nothing on the ME-340F model. Their tech support came back the same day telling me that the ME-340F model also uses the Oxford chip set but their ME-340U2F model does *not*. I suspected that, unfortunately most dealers carry the ME-340U2F. They didn't tell me which chip set was in the ME-340U2F - only that it wasn't oxford.

I also emailed Ultra since I like the enclosure that was on sale at TigerDirect. Their answer took a few days and then they sent me this:



> Thank you for your email
> Unfortunatley we are unable to provide you with that information.


You can draw your own conclusion from that reply.

krs


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

I have one of these hard drive cases 
Originally it was built by FannerTech/Speeze but it looks like FannerTech/Speeze
has been bought out by another company named Masscool.

I'm not sure what the chipset is but I have a 7200 rpm/200 gb/8 mb cache drive
in it attached via Firewire to my Sawtooth and it's running fine.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

Dave - 

When did you buy this enclosure. It has the Prolific chip set in it (it's right on TigerDirects web page) but it's possible the Prolific problems are now fixed.
I think all the negative postings on Prolific were in late 2004.

krs


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

I just cheaped out and got a bytecc USB 2.0 case $23. I hope it works fine. I have no idea on what chipset it uses. I hope it is fast enough to capture video though, if not it will just be a backup drive. I got a 5400rpm seagate 60GB 8MB cache notebook drive for my inside my iBook. I'll put the stock 30GB in the external case.

Thanks for all the info guys (and girls sometimes its hard to tell without looking at someones profile).

Josh


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

The USB 2.0 side should be OK even on the Prolific set - it's the firewire side they have/had problems with.
Let us know how it goes with USB 2.0. I also just bought a case with only USB 2.0 which I was going to use with a DVD burner...but I'm having second thoughts about that now.


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## Ryan1524 (Sep 27, 2003)

their Bytecc ME-740F enclosure has Oxford 911. they ahve lots of bytecc cases thou, so make sure it's the right model - it's the one with firewire ONLY. check bytecc's site, they have detailed specs there and what each model have as a chipset. the ME-740F (for firewire) is the one with Ox911


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## Ants (May 6, 2003)

I purchased a 3.5" aluminum enclosure ( w/FW400 & USB 2) from MacDoc which has a Prolific chip set in it. Came with a WD 120gig 7200rpm drive and it works like a charm. Never had any problems transferring files - always works. There's no actual brand name on the enclosure but oddly enough it looks very similar to the Bytecc cases.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

Aarggg, my case is the bytecc USB 2.0 only. It doesn't seem to work properly. Disk utility sees the drive, but when trying to partition or format it sits for about 8 minutes without the progress bar moving and then gives an error message. I can't repair the disk either, disk utility just gives another error message.

I think I might try another case. I'm assuming my drive is good. I did look at the chipset, I can't recall offhand what brand but it is not Prolific or Oxford.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

You get what you pay for sometimes.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

*Which one should I get??*

Here are few of the USB 2.0 2.5inch cases they carry which one should I get as a replacement?
Vantec 

Nspire 

Kingwin 

They also have some Bytecc cases which I think I am going to stay away from because my first one didn't work.

I am leaning towards the Kingwin enclosure. Does anyone have any experience with it?

-Josh


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

Have you tried formatting the drive in your Mac and then putting it into the USB case?


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

I'll try that tonight. I went to the store today at lunch with my case and drive to complain. I was able to format the drive in the store using a prolific chipset case and firewire. Maybe it will work in the USB case now that it is formatted. I didn't return the USB case because I left some of the packing at home. 

I've heard that the prolific cases are better with newer firmware. Does anyone no how to check/change the firmware using OS X.

-Josh


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

I went back yesterday evening and bought the prolific case. After doing some research I learned that prolific performance really depends on the firmware revision. With the later firmware revisions being a lot more reliable. You can actually flash the firmware to upgrade it if you have a PC with a program called ROMburner. I suggest Googling to find the appropiate firmware downloads.

-Josh


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

Josh -

Did you ever get your hard drive working in the USB 2.0 enclosure?
I finally managed to get to a Future Shop yesterday that still had some of the $69.- 120 Gig WD drives. Bought one and put it into the USB 2.0 enclosure I had at home. Took all of five minutes max.
The mini had no problem formatting the Western Digital drive via USB 2.0 - I then transferred about 9 Gig to the new drive. 
All in all worked batter than expected; the only confusing part was that there were two different options for HFS+ with really no explanation what the difference was. I just picked the default.


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## jdurston (Jan 28, 2005)

The first case which used an ALi chipset never did work for me despite advertising Mac compatibility. The second case using a prolific chipset works fine on both firewire and USB connections. I should note it is only bootable using firewire and that USB connections take two USB ports in order to power the drive. Firewire works fine with just a 6 pin cable or 4 pin with an external power adaptor.

-Josh


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