ok well i ordered a 320gb mybook with usb and firewire off ebay, but when i got it, it was a 500 gb one but with just usb. so i messaged the guy and asked him what went wrong. but im really starting to like the idea of the 500gb, so im wondering, is having only usb gona be slow? how much faster is firewire than usb? and this drive will be used for backups and possibly running files and apps off of.
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how much faster is firewire?
- Thread starter stealthsniper96
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Firewire 400 = 50 MB/s
Firewire 800 = 100 MB/s
USB 2.0 = 60 MB/s
Those are the bust-rate maximums, if I recall correctly.
Therefore, unless you have a FW800 port, and a FW800 drive, you're not going to see a difference.
USB has a higher theoretical mass burst rate than FW400, but firewire is MUCH (so much!) better for sustained data rates. If you are transfering large amounts of data (over 100MB) I would ALWAYS use FW given the option. FW800 is badass if you have the ports.
Firewire is awesome. Considering the size of the drive, you'll have a lot of files on it, and you'll want faster transfer rates. In all reality, firewire is much faster than USB, despite theoretical transfer rates, firewire can keep it up much longer. Unless you plan on filling up a drive with >100 MB files, firewire is for you (even in this case, it'd still be good though).
When I first read that I thought... Morphine? Then I realized you must be talking about that little blue pill.
I've had more experience and luck with USB than I have with Firewire. I've had drives not show up, but when I plug in a USB cable instead of Firewire, it works fine.
Throughput wise, I've been pretty happy with USB. But my new Firewire drive arrives on Tuesday, and maybe it will work much better than I've had in the past.
This was on a Windows running PC, correct?
For us Mac users, stick with Firewire if at all possible.