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Fast External Harddrive?

D

dndandrea

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 10, 2010
265
0
hey, i know there are plenty of threads about this and google has plenty of results, but im still not satisfied with the results.

im assuming firewire would be the quickest, what about the firewire 800 or w/e it is in the macbook pros though? is usb 2.0 significantly slower than the firewire?

i want to buy a external HDD that is around 500gb in size and can transfer over files just like my normal HDD is. 100% of the time that the mbp is home it will be attached to this. i want to put almost everything there is on my laptop over onto the external harddrive except for stuff i need (which then i'd just pull it onto the desktop) when i leave the house.

i'm assuming the western digital 500gb passport essential is the best buy, but i don't know much about it at all. it's only usb 2.0, which sounds like the slowest option when you throw firewire in the search.

thanks
 
Firewire 800 = 77MB/s
USB2 = ~32MB/s
SATA = ~250-300MB/s

Fast disks can currently max out FW800 but not SATA. Some SSDs can max out SATA.

I recommend a Samsung Spinpoint F3 (500GB or 1TB) and a FW800 external enclosure. I've seen up to 130MB/s from my 1TB Spinpoint F1 (the 1TB F3 is faster), and over 130MB/s from my 500gb Spinpoint F3. Sustained transfer speeds on both drives are usually over 100MB/s for large files.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...s/h2benchw-3.12-Avg-Read-Throughput,1010.html
 
OtherWorld Computing's Mercury Elite AL Pro is also quite fast. They've got one with a "quad interface" (1x FW400, 1x USB2, 2x FW800, 1x eSATA). It's a little out of your $120 price range (by $10) but it's worth it. The drive is extremely high quality, comes with all the cables (FW400, USB2, FW800, eSATA, power) and is quite fast. Their customer service is generally excellent and prompt.
 
Another reason to consider Firewire over USB is that USB will utilize the CPU whereas Firewire does not.

Someone explained the technical aspects of this in another post. I don't know the specifics, but I can say it's a noticeable difference if you monitor your system.
 
If you have ExpressCard, the fastest would be eSATA. But you should get a reliable card.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univer...ons_with_other_device_connection_technologies
USB was designed for simplicity and low cost, while FireWire was designed for high performance, particularly in time-sensitive applications such as audio and video.
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire#Comparison_with_USB
Typical USB PC-hosts rarely exceed sustained transfers of 280 Mbit/s, with 240 Mbit/s being more typical. This is likely due to USB's reliance on the host-processor to manage low-level USB protocol, whereas FireWire delegates the same tasks to the interface hardware (requiring less or no CPU usage).
Click to expand...
 
Using the firewire interface also keeps one of your USB ports free. There are only two USB ports, after all, on a UMBP.
 
eldy said:
Using the firewire interface also keeps one of your USB ports free. There are only two USB ports, after all, on a UMBP.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's probably the best reason of all. An external hard drive is probably the only accessory that you'll use that can have a firewire port, so you might as well buy one and save a USB port. If you can avoid messing with a USB hub, it sounds like a good idea.
 
cube said:
If you have ExpressCard, the fastest would be eSATA. But you should get a reliable card.
Click to expand...

And you have to plug the external in...

Also, not that many laptop 2.5" drives saturate the Firewire 800 connection. I've only really seen significant losses with an external SSD.
 
I totally recommend the WD Passport Studio Edition. I have the 500GB Passport version and it is very fast. Support for USB, FW400/800. I use that as my main computer backup. It also has a 5 year warranty.
 
LaCie Little Big Disk Quadra

hands down the fastest you can get:

hd_lbd.jpg


http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11357
 
if you buy separate hdd and enclosure then you are not limited and you have a lot of choices of what kind of hdd you want and what type of ports you need and i think its cheaper
because some products are not what you want even though you pay a lot for it
i recently bought mine so after one month of thinking came to this point that this way is better i and i like it
 
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