Best Storage option.

[Fourthbrook]

I have a 2010 13" Macbook Pro(intel core 2 duo) I am recently loading and backing up a lot of RAW images to my mac and it is taking up a lot of space. I need an external hard drive but don't want to use FW800 or USB 2.0 because of how slow they are...
... is there any faster way?

Hopefully not to expensive as I am a college student

Please help!!!!

Thanks

 

[nobunaga209]

How much data exactly are you trying to move? Even over USB 2.0 or better that Firewire you can move large GB's rather quickly. I mainly use the WD series of passport drives for external storage needs. They are relatively cheap everywhere [see Newegg or Amazon] and come in various sizes/flavors.

 

[Hellhammer]

FireWire 800 can provide ~80MB/s in real world and that is more than sufficient for moving big files. Most mechanical HDs can't provide sequential speeds that are much over 100MB/s anyway. You don't have any other options either

 

[Eddyisgreat]

FW800 and USB 2.0 don't belong in the same sentance.

Aside from a top end NAS device with some really speedy drives (read:$$$$), FW800 is going to be your best bet. You can't use eSATA because you have no expresscard capability (found on 17" MBP).

 

[Hellhammer]

Aside from a top end NAS device with some really speedy drives (read:$$$$), FW800 is going to be your best bet. You can't use eSATA because you have no expresscard capability (found on 17" MBP).

I can't think of any NAS that is faster than FW800 drive. Wireless n has theoretical maximum of 600Mb/s, that is 75MB/s. In real world, I haven't seen wireless n achieving sequential speeds over 10MB/s. Gigabit Ethernet might be slightly faster than FireWire 800 is (800Mb vs 1000Mb theoretical maximums) but that is not much. The speed of the drives is irrelevant as the issue is the medium that is used to transfer the data between the drive and computer.

 

[Gabriel GR]

Firewire is the fastest. The advantage of the NAS over a firewire drive is that you can have your data in a different filesystem without a huge performance drop. It's important if you have to share the disk between many computers.