This may be of some interest:


http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

John

I must confess, I body swerved Vista after having to remove it from countless pre-loaded machines and replace it with XP. Next OS will be Windows 7 x64, this is the reason I keep the drive letter "D" unassigned so I can set up a new partition on the primary drive and dual boot Win XP Pro SP3 x86 (32 bit) and Windows 7 64 bit. I'm sure I'm gonna get the BSOD as soon as Windows 7 detects the SCSI controller that I'm still using More fun and games

Just need to find a Core 2 Duo E8600, E8500 or E8400 so if any one has one at a decent price they're not using I've got the cash waiting

John

In Win XP:

My Computer > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management

Scroll to the selected drive

Right click the drive in the list and select "Change Drive Letter"

John

Sorry read the Title but not the first line of the post I'd go with the Siggy 10-20, the early one unless you can afford the DA 12-24.

John

The Samyang 8mm is the least expensive and very sharp stopped down.

John

Hi Ken,

I've just acquired an IcyBox and put a 2TB WD Caviar Green in it, connected with eSATA II. I used Acronis True Image Western Digital Edition (free to download from WD BTW) to format and prepare the drive, every time I start the PC the drive shows up as I:, even if I've had it unplugged! This has never happened before, my thinking is it's something to do with the Acronis software. My Sandisk card reader always shows up as the next available drive letter, which in my case was D: as my scratch disk was always drive E: by choice.

John

Hi Algi,

Thanks for that, I misunderstood, I thought you were referring to the internal power connection to the drive. All is clear now, I think the IcyBox is the way to go with a WD 2TB Green drive.

John

Thanks for the info Algi, do you mean the standard 4 pin Molex connectors as opposed to SATA power connectors? I only ask as some modern drives no longer have the older Molex provision.

They certainly look solid, alluminnium build, passively cooled, so no fan to worry about.

John

Thanks for all the recommendations. OK so it looks like I'm not going to get exactly what I'm looking for, so I'll drop the Firewire option and use USB for file transfer from the Macs. Unfortunately I don't have USB 3.0, I'm still running Win XP but I'm quite content with it. I generally use WD hard drives as I've been impressed with their durability and performance, so would probably buy WD for the external, unfortunately that limits me to USB 2.0. So the home build route using a WD SATA II drive + custom enclosure with eSATA and USB 2.0 looks like the best (if somewhat more expensive) option.

The IcyBox or the Novatech branded units are probably favourite, both have good reputations and are reasonably priced.

Thanks for all the advice.

John.

Thanks Steven,

I was just thinking if I had all the interfaces available in one enclosure it would be very handy. I think USB 2.0 is limited to approx 33 Mb/s in reality, despite the theoretical maximum speed. eSata would allow you to transfer data as fast as the slowest drive in use be it the internal or external drive, much faster if you have a spare SATA II connector in your machine.

John