Monday, November 08, 2004

Why firewire drive enclosures are probably a bad idea

Drivers & Updates
INITIO AND OXFORD FIRMWARE UTILITY DOWNLOAD CENTER

MAXTOR MAKES BAD DRIVES: WE HAVE RECEIVED INFORMATION THAT MANY MAXTOR 250GB 8MB 7200RPM Drives MODEL 6Y250P0062811 (mostly made in June and July 2004) DO NOT WORK PROPERLY IN ANY FIREWIRE ENCLOSURES!

WE HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION: IF you are using Oxford 911 ,912 or 922 you will need to change DMA modes down to UDMA5 (down form UDMA6 default). This will fix Transfer Issues with these Maxtor Drives.

Firwire is a problematic standard. Oxford is a problematic chipset. Hard drives can be problematic. OS support for firewire can be problatic. Cables can be problematic.

So what's the chance that everything actually works?

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