Firewire has enough power to run any 2.5" drive on any machine that has a 6-pin firewire port. USB2... Only on some systems. I also found firewire to be less CPU intensive than similar USB devices I've used. If the requirement is for an optical drive or a 3.5" HDD, then that's not much of an issue anymore since you'll need external power. I prefer cases with integrated power supplies and a standard IEC power cord (instead of wallwart)

I'd always choose Firewire over USB2.0 If you have a choice, an external enclosure with both is nice. You should also ditch 2K in favor of XP. Reality might dictate what you choose. if you need to share with people who don't have firewire, then you'll obviously need USB. Everyone I need to connect with has Firewire, so I'm safe there.

It takes 2 clicks to eject a device. Using the LEFT mouse button, click once on the tray icon and then once on the name of the device that pops up. It might take a third click to press OK *after* it's ejected on an information pop-up window.

2K and XP do not cache write operations to flash media. There *shouldn't* be a need to software-eject those volumes (but there is). At least they should make it easier, like being able to context-click on the device icon itself. Mac OS' way is a simple "eject" command on the device icon (from keyboard or mouse).

Bruno