Is USB 2.0 Fast enough?

If all you're gonna do are backups then I wouldn't spend the extra money.

Everyone has a different opinion though.

 

Unless you're concerned about getting the backups done in a particular timeframe, then yes, it's fast enough. I use 2.0 to do my Time Machine backups on my MacBook Air hourly and have no issues.

 

after the initial backup, every additional backup is incremental. so usb should be fine.

if you were working with audio recording, or film editing, fw would be essential, but usb works for backing up.

 

Have you considered a network drive instead? For a laptop, this is a huge improvement in backup frequency, because you don't have to manually connect the drive in order to back up. It will back up automatically whenever it is scheduled and the computer is on the network. Wireless is slow, but for day to day backups that doesn't matter, and for the big backups, Gigabit Ethernet is faster than even FW800.

These drives can be bought starting at about $125 for 1TB.

 

I know everyone is different, but I'm surprised how many people find USB 2.0 usable.

USB 2.0 is too slow for me. Sure it doesn't matter much if you don't mind the time, but I personally do all my backups over Gigabit Ethernet.

 

if you're using time machine (i don't, personally), an incremental backup is not going to take much time at all.

for anything requiring great speed, other options are certainly worth exploring.

 

I think you would be better off finding a USB 3.0 external drive which of course is USB 2.0 compatible. This way if in 2012 and beyond if you upgrade you mac and it is an Ivy Bridge it will natively support USB 3.0 witch Apple will 99.999% support. Firewire is dying. I wouldn't invest in it going forward.

 

Shouldn't be too surprising. $$ trumps many other things for most people it seems.

 

lots of uses for usb 2.0.

audio interfaces
midi interfaces
backup drives
flash drives

am an audio pro, using a usb interface, and all is well.

we have 2 usb ports on our macs; should we not use them?

 

Get Firewire if $$ is not an issue, or if the price for firewire interface is comparable to USB. You never know what you might plan to use your HD for in the future.

 

FW800 is about 40% faster in real world performance. You decide, if it's a long term solution i would spend the extra dough.

 

Spend a few extra $$. USB 2.0 is slow as molasses. FW800 is much better.