Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

FireWire vs. USB

S

spectorbassguy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
On my G4 Dual 1 Gig Power Mac I've been running various FireWire 400 external hard drives over the last couple of years and have had 3 of them die in the last 4 months. 😕 I've done all the repair utilities and no help - LaCie tells me that they have probably just failed and need replacement. I've seen lots of posts on different forums - a lot of people seem to have this happening quite often.

My question: Does anyone know if the External Hard Drives with FireWire AND USB 2.0 connections will be more reliable and longer lasting if I use the USB port? I really don't want to be buying new drives every year or two.

Also: What brand do you consider to be the most reliable external hard drive? How about the least reliable?

Thanks!
 
My Maxtor 80 GB FireWire drive is something like 4 years old now and is working smoothly. There were moments when it didn't seem to want to work but after I started carrying it back and forth to classes, it behaved better.

I'm not sure I would trust Maxtor or Western Digital but the smaller the company, the less faith I would have. It depends on the price, as well. Some bargains are no bargain at all.
 
LaCie is supposed to be pretty good
the HD failing most likely has to do with the actual hard drive and not the connection used, so switching to USB wouldn't help other than to slow down the data transfer rate
 
= (

usb is sllooowwww... use firewire simply because its faster and puts out 45w of power and usb puts out 2.5 so if u use a firewire drive it can be powered by the single cord instead of needing a power-cord to go with it. usb is for small, very low-power, or low speed devices like a mouse or keyboard.
 
unixkid said:
usb is sllooowwww... use firewire simply because its faster and puts out 45w of power and usb puts out 2.5 so if u use a firewire drive it can be powered by the single cord instead of needing a power-cord to go with it. usb is for small, very low-power, or low speed devices like a mouse or keyboard.
Click to expand...

i think he's talking about usb 2.0
 
I have a friend who is a professional musician that I used to do some assistant work for. Anyway, he bought a western digital after talking to all of his buddies. They all said it was the best and most reliable. As for maxtor I have lots of trouble with mine and eveyone I know that has one doesn't like it. That's my 2 cents.
 
MacUser1 said:
i think he's talking about usb 2.0
Click to expand...

Also, I've never seen a bus powered full-size external FireWire drive. Yeah, they've got the 2.5 inch drives, but never a full size hard disk. (Am I wrong?)
 
stoid said:
Also, I've never seen a bus powered full-size external FireWire drive. Yeah, they've got the 2.5 inch drives, but never a full size hard disk. (Am I wrong?)
Click to expand...

All the 3.5 inch drives I've seen, including mine, have a power brick.
 
spectorbassguy said:
My question: Does anyone know if the External Hard Drives with FireWire AND USB 2.0 connections will be more reliable and longer lasting if I use the USB port? I really don't want to be buying new drives every year or two.
Click to expand...

Neither USB nor Firewire have anything to do with physical drive failure.
 
ive been using a maxtor 80 gig firewire drive for about a year now and it has never failed me... btw... it also has a power brick...

i know someone with a 20 gig flywire[?] drive that is powered off the firewire cable itself...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back