I know the positives of FW booting, so I'm not looking for why I should get an ext. case w/ FW. What I'd like to know is what are the negatives of booting from USB 2.0.
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What is the downside of booting from USB?
- Thread starter Chupa Chupa
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The Stig
macrumors 6502a
It is slower. Firewire 400 is much faster than USB 2.0 when it comes to transferring data back and forth.
I have a firewire/usb HD and firewire is much better. When I did transfer tests USB was 16.4 MB/s. Firewire (400) was 29.5 MB/s!!!! NICE!!! I would like to see what a FW800 drive could do! When you have a Mac with built in firewire, why take up a USB port when you have a free firewire port? That is assuming you are like a lot of people and don't have a lot of firewire devices.
The Stig
I have a firewire/usb HD and firewire is much better. When I did transfer tests USB was 16.4 MB/s. Firewire (400) was 29.5 MB/s!!!! NICE!!! I would like to see what a FW800 drive could do! When you have a Mac with built in firewire, why take up a USB port when you have a free firewire port? That is assuming you are like a lot of people and don't have a lot of firewire devices.
The Stig
itickings
macrumors 6502a
In my experience, USB isn't as stable as FW. Having to restart a data drive is an inconvenience, but restarting the boot drive is, well, a system crash.
The only time a FW drive has lost connection for me was when the firewire hub it was connected to decided to die... On the other hand, it might just be me and bad luck with USB enclosures, and good luck with FW enclosures (minus FW hubs 😛).
The only time a FW drive has lost connection for me was when the firewire hub it was connected to decided to die... On the other hand, it might just be me and bad luck with USB enclosures, and good luck with FW enclosures (minus FW hubs 😛).