Determining maximum capacity for external drive case?

[ho'ard]

I have three cases that seem to be the same. Two have 160 GB drives, which are starting to seem a little small-- would like one 500 GB drive to use as a main backup volume.
How do I figure out what the capacity is?
Disk utility identifies one case simply as "Oxford Semiconductor". They are external Firewire cases. There are no markings or labels on the outside whatsoever.
I would guess I bough them at newegg 2-4 years ago, but it could have been OWC,
They are firewire only.
Look (exactly) like this:


Here's a description-- but I didn't buy it here and don't know if it's the same one. Can't link directly to listing so I hope this google link works.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h..._M3_2F.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.atacom.com/program/atacom.cgi%3Fcart_id%3D3228454_65_105_228_241%26USER_ID%3D%26Pagecode%3D1%257CUSBE&h=56&w=70&sz=4&hl=en&start=362&tbnid=nG1s0jEbywELpM:&tbnh=54&tbnw=68&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfirewire%2Benclosure%26start%3D360%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN
BTW "PATA" is the kind of drive I want, right?

[GGD]

The capacity limitation was at the 128GB barrier, so if those 160GB drives are showing up as being larger than 128GB, then the FW bridge in those enclosures can support the larger drives such as the 500GB that you're interested in.

[ho'ard]

I've found an enclosure like this (but USB/Firewire) at a couple different sites and they usually say "supports up to 300 gb" . . .

[GGD]

[quote ho'ard]I've found an enclosure like this (but USB/Firewire) at a couple different sites and they usually say "supports up to 300 gb" . . .
My take on statements like "supports up to 300 gb" is that at the time that they wrote that, 300GB was probably the largest drives that were available, so they never tested above 300GB. Of all of the enclosures that I've owned, if they worked with 300GB, they also worked fine with 500GB.

[ho'ard]

The current FW400 enclosures I was able to find online seem to all say "up to 500 GB".
Do you think that's the same deal? You'd think they'd be testing bigger than 500GB, currently.

[ho'ard]

And, what do I need to know about ordering a new drive?
Anything but SATA?

[Dubya]

I have two of those.

They're made by Bytecc. One I use as a CD-R case (Sony). I recently had a Seagate 250 GB drive in the other. Recognized the entire disc. Pretty good cases actually. The power supply is built in. No wall-wart.

Mine are the 5 and one half inch capacity. I believe they made a 3 and one half inch as well.

[ho'ard]

Yup, Bytec sounds right.
I think all three are 5 1/2 inchers.
I'm pretty confident they'll do 300 gb but don't know about 500 . . .
GGD seems to be saying that either you have the 128 gig limitation or you are unlimited . . .
right GGD?

[GGD]

[quote h']Yup, Bytec sounds right.
I think all three are 5 1/2 inchers.
I'm pretty confident they'll do 300 gb but don't know about 500 . . .
GGD seems to be saying that either you have the 128 gig limitation or you are unlimited . . .
right GGD?
Yes, that's been my experience. It's not really unlimited, but the limit is larger than any drive made today, and it's quite likely that drive makers will stop making PATA drives before storage capacity gets to the point where that limit is reached.