09-26-2012, 06:30 PM
ka jowct wrote:
[quote=Lew Zealand]
Inside the case the 2TB 2.5" units are 4-platter 15mm height SATA drives.
Not much different from a 4-platter 3.5" drive, only smaller with half the storage space. The only advantage to these units over a 3.5" drive is for bus-powered external use. The problem with that is: how often do you need 2TB of space to be hot-swappable?
I'd be inclined to get the bare drive and pop it into one of the OWC mini enclosures that can be AC powered. It would be a lot more portable than any enclosure I've seen for 3.5" drives. The Western Digital external is bus powered and smaller than the OWC Mini. But I'd rather have the option of AC power and FW 800, even if the enclosure is slightly larger. I think the WD drive is USB 3, but I don't have anything with USB 3 ports.
I've thought about doing the same thing for the FW800 advantage (no USB3 here yet, either) but I just don't know if these 15mm drives will fit in the OWC enclosures. The 1.5TB 12.5mm high units fit in the OWC cases as they sell these already installed but I don't know if the cases have that extra 2.5mm of clearance for these tall boys.