Orange Micro Inc. will soon offer the FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure. The enclosure is being offered to Mac and PC users who are interested in converting an existing IDE hard drive into an external storage device.
FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 can both be found on the new Power Mac G5, which just began shipping this month. FireWire 800 offers up to 800Mbps of available bandwidth, while USB 2.0 maxes out at 480Mbps. Both interfaces are downward-compatible with their slower predecessors, which can be found on a wider range of Macs.
Equipped with two FireWire 800 ports and one USB 2.0 port, Orange Micro’s new drive enclosure includes a power supply, installation screws and internal cables. It’s compatible with Mac OS X v10.2.4 or later (and various flavors of Windows).
Orange Micro plans to ship the new enclosure on October 13, 2003. It will carry a suggested retail price of US$129.