The big external enclosures thread

chas0039,

Those look cool. Do they use the Oxford chipsets?

clintb,

I emailed Macpower a while ago and they said the Pleaides are sold rebranded in Canada at elephantstorage But I think with drives already in them.

Rothie

I just got the cheap USB Plumax from dealsonic.com. (PM-525U2-PCS V5) I'm happy. The Cypress AT2+ chipset is good. My Liteon in this enclosure can do anything it could do when attached to my motherboard. I get 22 MB/s burst rate.

The fan is as quiet as can be expected, but it doesn't move much air. I guess it doesn't need to. The top of the drive didn't go above 29° C (84° F).

One thing I really like is the built-in power supply. Much nicer than the clumsy power bricks, IMHO.

It's not the easiest enclosure to open if you swap drives a lot. Assuming you put the side strips on, that is. I'm not using the strips now. I use a couple of rubber bands to secure the top.

This is also the best hard drive enclosure I have because it allows me to access the S.M.A.R.T. stuff. Hallelujah! Finally a chipset that works. The hard drive temperature topped off at 44° C (111° F) after a couple of hours, with the front panel off. Not too bad for occasional use. This is an older hard drive and new ones should generate less heat.

Now I'm wondering if the Oxford 911+ is this good.

My thanks to Chas and others who posted here.

No, but as I only use it for hard drives, I am much less concerned about the chipset; hard drives are considerably less picky.

Any suggestions from anyone on a good case thats not stupidly expensive in UK/europe? that must NOT use prolific 3507, I've had horrid problems witht hat chipset and my mac with transfers failing mid way though. whereas oxford chipset has been solid as rock.

I just tried out one of the Neo enclosures with the NEC chipset. There are at Dealsonic: http://www.dealsonic.com/neon5blnecch.html

I ran some prelininary tests with a Liteon165P6S and the most you will be getting will be 12X as the burst rate is only 21MBs.

Other cases I have tested have acieved up to 30MBs with this same drive and this drive is faster than any other drive I have tested. Anyone getting this should assume 12X as an upper limit and probably 8X for most drives. Of course, different USB chipsets might be faster.

Post # 81, 85, 86 in this thread may be of interest.

This drive is installed in a Neo enclosure with NEC chipset.

Could you check the burst rate, please?

25 mbs

Thanks, thats of some help, albeit still seem to be hard to get hold of and expensive, but at least gives me something that uses a decent chipset to search for.

Another thing to mention, I ordered the charcoal version of this and I thought I had received the silver version. Dealsonic insisted that the one I have is "charcoal". At best, this thing is grey and will match almost none of the optical drives made today. Anyone who gets this thing should be aware, it will not match anything and is the same color others sell as Silver.

I will be dumping mine on Ebay; I am not impressed with the quality of the parts or the fit or finish, and the electronics are very poorly assembled. The Plumax cases were very well designed and built. These things look like they should cost $5.

I am dispointed in the color also, its like dark silver and doesn't match anything. It seems to work well for a USB encolsure and it is inexpensive. Could be of some use I guess.

I agree with both you and chas0039 about the color. Although, in my case, I'm not worried about it since it's kinda out of sight. I do like that the performance seems to be good for a USB enclosure.

Chas0039 wants to sell and clinth seems intrested. Seems like a match.

I have a Plumax with an Oxford 911+ chipset.
Does anyone know the proper "Advanced Settings" for using a DVD burner with this chipset?
My LiteOn 165H6S errors out constantly when in this enclosure, yet runs perfectly when in a Plumax/Prolific 3507 enclosure.
What Burners do well in this Oxford based enclosure?
Also for those who are having success with this external Oxford chipset case, what is the Host 1394 chipset on their PCI or motherboard?
Thanks for any & all info.

Nah, I already have two of 'em.

clintb, what drives have tried and whats the burst rates.

Since I'm at work and don't have access to my enclosures to tell ya, I'll get the settings and post them here probably tonight.

I've been playing around with the settings to get the fastest, most stable burns I can and have succeeded in rock solid 16x burns. I've hit just shy of 18x on my H22N as well. Oh, these are hooked up to my laptop docking station, so a desktop my perform even better. When I started messing with the settings, I was barely able to do a consistent 8x burn, let alone 12x.

First one is the tool that I've verified to work with the 911+ and a 924 chipset enclosure I have. Second one is the latest firmware for the 911+ I've found.
Oxford Updater
911+ 1.02.0300 Firmware

clintb,
Thanks for the response and the uploader/firmware links.
I'll look forward to hearing from you.

clintb,
Would you be so kind as to share your 911plus uploader settings with me. And also what burner works best in this enclosure from your experience.
I am not satisfied with my 16X firewire burn quality using my BenQ1640, vBSLB in this case with Verbatim media. Low QS of 77, 88, 92, when the same media produces 95 and above using different external cases. So I know it is not the media.
I am having difficulty getting my BenQ1640, vBSLB even recognized (in fact, not at all) when I connect the Cypress USB2 side of this enclosure. Would this be a BenQ conflict with the Cypress chip, or do I have a defective case? My other BenQ's (1620, 1650, 1655) run fine under USB2 external cases with Nec chips.
I ask this, as this Oxford case is an RMA replacement from the original which was totally messed up on the power side.
Feel free to PM me if you prefer.

dishinit,

have you already considered crossflashing your DW 1640 to EW 164B (external UDMA4 firmware)?

Michael

I apologize for not posting the Oxford 911+ settings last night; went to P.F. Chang's for a company dinner. Yum!

Ok, on this screen is the currently detected device and the flash EEPROM it is using. From experience, I'm highly recommend you to take a screen shot of your current device before starting.

Under "Current Selected Device", you have two lines. The first tells what flash chip is used. The second line is the current firmware. If you happen to screw up firmware, you will need to know the flash device type, which is line one.

From the main screen, you click "Modify Configuration Information" to get here.

The only thing that is recommended to change is "Device Type" under "Device 0 Details". If connecting an optical drive, change it to "CD/DVD Drive".

I've also changed "Manufacturer Name" to something more sensible so it can be identified in Device Manager.

On the previous screen, you'll click the "Advanced" button to arrive here.

I've selected to use UDMA5 under "Master I/O Mode" since some devices don't like the unofficial UDMA6. It is of no consequence to us using optical drives since the fastest ones are UDMA4, but I did it for compatibility.

From the "Modify Configuration Information" screen, click "Striping, Spanning and Splitting..." to arrive here.

I disabled all options that could be unchecked. Doing this made the difference in barely being able to burn at 8x to getting rock solid 16x burns.