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LINDY Mac-mini-style USB/FireWire external HDD bay

by Bob Crabtree on 9 November 2006, 13:06

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Read our review and fancy a smart, space-saving Mac mini Core Duo? Well, if you can't afford one but want to impress your friends and need an external hard-drive, LINDY sells a Mac-mini-style enclosure that connects by USB 2 or FireWire, uses no fans and is said to work equally well with Windows or Mac PCs.

The product - the Mini HDD Enclosure (part no 42919), pitched at £39.99 - takes a single 3.5in IDE/ATA drive (there's no SATA version as yet) and is finished in silver and white with an aluminium top to aid heat dissipation.

lindy mac_mini_style_hdd_enclosure



lindy mac_mini_style_hdd_enclosure_rear


Specs, as given by LINDY, are:

• USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 (IEEE1394a)
• USB 2.0 interface is backwards compatible with USB 1.1 equipped computers
• Connectors: 1 x USB 2.0 Type B female; 2 x six-pin FireWire female
• Blue power LED
• Power supply and cables included
• Dimensions: 162(w) x 162(d) x 47(h)mm

LINDY sells the product here and says that Micro Anvika also stocks the enclosure, though we could find sign of it on the company's site.

One likkle thing to know - if you are planning to pair this with a Mac mini, we'd advise you not to stack the drive enclosure on top of the mini. We've heard that the mini can have problems if it's not the top item in a stack. What we don't know, though, is whether the drive within the LINDY enclosure will stay cool enough if it's got a mini sat on top of it.

Thoughts? Share them with us in this thread in the HEXUS.lifestyle.news forum.

HEXUS.links

HEXUS.community :: discussion thread about this article
HEXUS.lifestyle.reviews - Mac mini Core Duo

External.links

Lindy UK - Mini HDD Enclosure
Lindy UK - home page
Micro Anvika - home page

HEXUS Forums :: 24 Comments

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Posted by dangel - Thu 09 Nov 2006 13:20
“One likkle thing to know - if you are planning to pair this with a Mac mini, we'd advise you not to stack the drive enclosure on top of the mini. We've heard that the mini can have problems if it's not the top item in a stack. What we don't know, though, is whether the drive within the LINDY enclosure will stay cool enough if it's got a mini sat on top of it.”

Will the heat from the box not rise up and heat up the bottom of the mini then?

Anyway, nice box - but no firewire 800? eSATA? Either of those would be preferable (well eSATA tbh for me) and the price looks a bit steep next to an ICY box etc..
Posted by Bob Crabtree - Thu 09 Nov 2006 14:55
dangel
“One likkle thing to know - if you are planning to pair this with a Mac mini, we'd advise you not to stack the drive enclosure on top of the mini. We've heard that the mini can have problems if it's not the top item in a stack. What we don't know, though, is whether the drive within the LINDY enclosure will stay cool enough if it's got a mini sat on top of it.”

Will the heat from the box not rise up and heat up the bottom of the mini then?

Anyway, nice box - but no firewire 800? eSATA? Either of those would be preferable (well eSATA tbh for me) and the price looks a bit steep next to an ICY box etc..

Ah, we have a physicist among our number Cough!

:bowdown:

Of course, there will be some impact on the Mac mini and - truth is - I don't know what that will be. But a drive within an enclosure that has reduced free-air at the top and is passively-cooled (in part by its ali top), is a bit worrying to me.

Oh, but, apparently, part of the reason why it's a bad idea to stack stuff like this on top of a Mac mini is cos it sods up the wifi.

As for comparative pricing - again, you state a Sybil, but the whole point of the LINDY product, in my view, is that it looks like a Mac mini, so the premium isn't totally unreasonable.

Concerning Sata 800 - that would have only driven up the price.

Personally, I've only ever had BAD experiences with that technology - though they have all been on a single XP Pro PC (the only one I have with IEEE 1394b) and a single external LaCie HDD (ditto). The drive just wasn't seen or wasn't seen reliably.

However, I'm very glad you mentioned the subject because I will now see if things are any different at all under Vista RC2 beta, the next time I boot up into that OS!

But, if they're not, I still won't know whether to blame the built-in FireWire IEEE 1394b in the PC or in the LaCie drive!

eSata? Well, again, that might have increased the price - and definitely would have done if it was an addition to USB/FireWire and not in place of it - but, probably more importantly, it would have massively reduced the potential number of sales LINDY might make since there are, relatively speaking, VERY few PCs out there yet with eSATA capabilities.
Posted by Bob Crabtree - Thu 09 Nov 2006 19:07
dangel,

I've now booted into Vista (from where I write this) and done a small number of tests with IEEE 1394b (aka FireWire800), which seems to be working just fine.

Previously, on the same PC, FW800 hadn't worked properly under XP Pro - though, as I recall, that was under a very busy config with rather too many apps and utilities installed than will have been good for the machine.

First test today was to connect a MiniDV VCR using a cable with a FW400 four-pin plug at one end and a FW800 nine-pin plug at the other.

The DV VCR was seen and able to be controlled by Vista's own video-capture app.

I then turned off the VCR and started using a dual nine-pin FW800 cable to test the speed of copying of a backup file from the LaCie to the PC.

The file was 3.12GByte (so about 3195MByte) and copied via FW800 in 1min 22 secs. The data rate, therefore, was around 39MByte per sec.

I then deleted that file from the PC's hard disk, used the “Safely Remove Hardware” tool to disconnect the drive, and switched cables - this time using a standard six-pin-to-six-pin FW400 cable.

The same file took 2min dead, meaning that the data rate was 26.6MByte per sec.

So, in that single comparative test, FW800 was bringing over data about 12.4MByte/sec faster than FW400, which is considerably less than the 100 per cent gain that some companies (rather naughtily) tout for FireWire800 but, still, very worthwhile having.

So, thanks for setting me thinking.

Next time I boot this PC into a clean test config for XP Pro, I'll repeat these tests and see if FW800 works any better there than it did under than cluttered XP Pro configuration.
Posted by Bob Crabtree - Thu 09 Nov 2006 22:20
I did just that and the was reminded of the fact that SP2 comprehensively stuffs FW800.

The above-mentioned disc transfer via FW800 under XP Pro SP2 took 13minutes dead - a data rate of just 4MByte/sec.

Using FireWire400, the time was 2m 8sec - datarate of 25MByte/sec.

So I installed the updater that Microsoft provides - KB885222 - and did a reboot. This time, the FW800 transfer took 3m 5sec - a data rate of just 17.2MByte/sec.

Part of the update process involves a registry tweak which I didn't do at the outset but after I did that, and then rebooted, the FW800 transfer took a bit longer than before, 3m 15sec, so the transfer rate had fallen to 16.4MByte/sec.

Grrr!

And now, when I go to connect by FireWire 400, the drive isn't seen - even after a reboot. Double Grrr!

But, back again in Vista, nothing has changed, so at least I know the drive's FW400 side hasn't been done in.
Posted by Nick F - Thu 09 Nov 2006 22:21
Nice find Bob, I had no idea something like this existed. I have the LaCIE external drive that sits under my mini but I'm always looking for extra stroage and this fits the bill :)

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