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

External hard drive - USB 2 or Firewire?

E

Effortless

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 17, 2008
31
0
West Kent, UK
Hi folks,

I'm about to buy an external hard drive for my MacBook Pro to use for backups and storage.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of USB 2 and Firewire. My early MBP only has Firewire 400, not 800, so would I see any benefits in backup speed or reliability with a Firewire drive?

Or save some cash and just go with the USB 2 drive?

Thanks for your input,
Effortless.
 
Effortless said:
Hi folks,

I'm about to buy an external hard drive for my MacBook Pro to use for backups and storage.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of USB 2 and Firewire. My early MBP only has Firewire 400, not 800, so would I see any benefits in backup speed or reliability with a Firewire drive?

Or save some cash and just go with the USB 2 drive?

Thanks for your input,
Effortless.
Click to expand...

If your running 10.5 then USB 2.0 is fine. If your running anything earlier that 10.5 you should get firewire.
 
Hawkeye,

that's interesting! But why??!!

I'm running 10.4 at the moment, but planning at some stage to upgrade to 10.5, but I don't yet understand the reason for your suggestion.

Thanks,
Effortless.
 
Firewire. For two reasons: (1) your USBs are probably already taken up with printers, scanners and iPods, etc. (2) Firewire can be daisy-chained, but USB cannot, so for example I have an external desktop drive and plug a mobile hard drive into it when backing up to take out of the house - no need to plug and unplug.

Ideally I'd go for USB 2 and Firewire in the same drive (e.g. Lacie or Iomega), and if you can why not have FW800 as well for the future - hard drives last a long time especially if you are getting a high capacity one.
 
I would recommend a combination of USB and Firewire. Having Firewire gives you the ability to be able to boot from the hard drive, which I have done once.
 
In the real world, it is also my experience that firewire is faster than USB 2.0. It also happens to be more reliable for me, in terms of keeping connections and dealing with bus power. I'd also recommend FireWire. But yes, ideally one should get a combo FW/USB 2.0. There are the new-fangled quad-interface drives (FW400/800/eSATA/USB2.0) drives that are noticeably pricier; I've decided not to settle for a USB 2.0 drive only on my next external drive purchase.

Regarding 10.5 v. earlier and USB 2.0 performance, I've noticed many of the same intermittent and unwarranted Device disconnected problems on Leopard as I had with Tiger. Speedwise, I have not been able to discern a difference.
 
Yeah I bought a USB drive recently and I sort of regret it. I mean, it does everything fine, and its fairly quick, but with only two USB slots on my MB, it means I'm constantly unplugging printers, eyetv and other drives when necessary. Plus that extra speed is always nice...
 
Firewire is also handy if you get a drive that can be powered just from the firewire port (mostly 2.5" enclosures, I don't think I've seen a 3.5" one that did that); then you don't have to carry around a separate power cable (or worse, one of those crazy double-USB things.)
 
I'd spend the extra (it's not that much more expensive) and get a dual firewire/USB interface drive!

Firewire is a lot faster than USB 2.0 in real world applications.

As for the person talking about 10.4 vs 10.5. I think he is a little mistaken in his views.
 
bstreiff said:
Firewire is also handy if you get a drive that can be powered just from the firewire port (mostly 2.5" enclosures, I don't think I've seen a 3.5" one that did that); then you don't have to carry around a separate power cable (or worse, one of those crazy double-USB things.)
Click to expand...

they make usb bus powered drives as well
 
jeffmc said:
they make usb bus powered drives as well
Click to expand...

Does anyone make them using only one USB port? Every one I've seen requires two ports. (USB only delivers 5V 500mA, which I don't think can power anything larger than an iPod hard drive.)
 
I would go with Firewire. Technically USB 2.0 is faster because it has the potential to run at 480mb/s and firewire 400 runs at 400mb/s but with firewire it's a more stable speed and more reliable, the transfer rate does not fluctuate as widely as the USB 2.0 and that's why it seems faster.

Now firewire 800 is the way to go..

Peace:cool:
 
If you want a 2.5'' external that you can use without the power lead, I've been told it's best to get a FW one. FW has a much higher bus power supply.

I have a cheap 2.5'' USB external drive, and out of my collection of about 6 old 2.5'' drives, only one will spin up on USB power (from my MacBook C2D) and that's with both USB ports connected.

(They all spin up when plugged into a mains power supply.)

If you're just looking for an 3.5'' external drive, then get what you like. BTW all my decent external cases have both FW and USB.
 
Effortless said:
Hi folks,

I'm about to buy an external hard drive for my MacBook Pro to use for backups and storage.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of USB 2 and Firewire. My early MBP only has Firewire 400, not 800, so would I see any benefits in backup speed or reliability with a Firewire drive?

Or save some cash and just go with the USB 2 drive?

Thanks for your input,
Effortless.
Click to expand...

Always choose Firewire when you have a choice. Firewire is much faster with large file transfers, whereas USB 2 is better for smaller files. USB rarely peaks at its 480mbps, but Firewire sustains much closer to its 400mbps.

TEG
 
bstreiff said:
Does anyone make them using only one USB port? Every one I've seen requires two ports. (USB only delivers 5V 500mA, which I don't think can power anything larger than an iPod hard drive.)
Click to expand...

what? open up a best buy flyer theres tons of them that use a single usb cable

they're about 100$ for 160 gigs
 
I use personally use firewire--I have a G-Drive connected directly to my MBP via FW800, and daisychained to my G-Drive is a LaCie connected to the G-Drive's FW400 connector; connected to my LaCie is another external HD via FW400 (I only use the 3rd HD for weekly SuperDuper backups, so it's not always connected). It's nice having 2 externals but only using one FW (800) port... Even if you don't currently think you need multiple HD's, it is nice to have the future flexibility rather than starting from scratch a few months down th eroad & ultimately getting a FW drive... FWIW, I agree w/ those who suggest your first external should have both FW & USB for initial flexibility as well...I'd also make sure that your first external have more than one FW port so you can daisychain.
 
What happens if you hook a dual FW/USB drive USB to a windows PC and FW to your Mac? (Assuming you've formatted it Fat32 I suppose)?

Can both access the same drive at the same time?
 
akm3 said:
What happens if you hook a dual FW/USB drive USB to a windows PC and FW to your Mac? (Assuming you've formatted it Fat32 I suppose)?

Can both access the same drive at the same time?
Click to expand...

With both computers connected, if one is off, the other one will work fine. If both are turned on then I think there'll be a disk fault as soon as both try to access the drive at the same time. Even just routine polling of the connection might be enough. So between a few seconds to a few milliseconds after both connections become active.

Effects might range from:

- just can't access the drive, and fixed by unplugging one computer and powercycling the drive (most likely)
- to causing a kernel panic / bsod on one or both computer (less likely)
- to making the drive unreadable and needing a reformat (pretty unlikely)
 
jeffmc said:
what? open up a best buy flyer theres tons of them that use a single usb cable

they're about 100$ for 160 gigs
Click to expand...

And no other separate power connector?

I have a 2.5" Firewire enclosure. The only cable running to it is the Firewire cable from my Mac mini. No extra power connector; it's powered just from the Firewire cable.

Every USB enclosure I've ever seen has either required, in addition to the USB data connection, a second USB connector for power or some other power connector (power brick, etc).
 
Firewire

I'd recommend a firewire. Mainly because its speedier and can be configured in daisychain.

Also all macs can boot from firewire but not from usb, though it doesnt make much of a difference.
I mean how many of us actually dual-boot our MACs:apple:
 
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