USB 2/USB 1.1 - what's the Bondi blue iMac have?

[aspen1982]

Hi,
I was hoping somebody could help clarify something for me....all the talk of USB 2.00, 1.1 and 1.0 is confusing me a little. How do I know which my computer has? I have 2 USB ports on my Bondi Blue iMac but which kind are they? I want to buy a CD-Rewriter but some say reduced speed with USB 1.1.
Many thanks.

 

[varmit]

Hi,
I was hoping somebody could help clarify something for me....all the talk of USB 2.00, 1.1 and 1.0 is confusing me a little. How do I know which my computer has? I have 2 USB ports on my Bondi Blue iMac but which kind are they? I want to buy a CD-Rewriter but some say reduced speed with USB 1.1.
Many thanks.

Most likely 1 or 1.1. Not much difference between the 1 and 1.1 I believe. Just there was a major speed boost when going from USB 1/1.1 to USB 2. This means when you mac is sending data to the burner, it will do it at a slower rate with USB 1 than with USB 2. The burner can then only burn at a slower speed, and not at the top speed. Say your burner has a top speed of 24X burning, your mac would only be able to burn at maybe 12X or so. I would search for a cd writer that is not top of the line in speed.

 

[Makosuke]

USB 1.1 only. Unless you have a FireWire port, which you almost certainly don't, then an external USB1 CDRW is going to be very slow. It will work, though. You don't hear much about the difference between 1.1 and 1.0 since it's not really relevant anymore; it's only the difference between 1 and 2 (2 being 40 times faster than 1).

Only fairly new Macs have USB2 built in.

 

[Blue Velvet]

It will be USB 1 or 1.1... which equals slowwww (in terms of CD-burning)

USB 2 has only turned up relatively recently in Macs.
The G4 dual 1.42 I bought last year has 1 or 1.1...

For the most part USB 2 devices are backwardly compatible with USB 1 but I hate to think what CD burning would be like...

 

[jxyama]

FYI:

USB 1.0 is up to 1.5 Mbps
1.1 is up to 12 Mbps
2.0 is up to 480 Mbps

Apple's system profiler should be able to tell you how fast the ports are, but iMac G3 will definitely not have USB 2.0.

 

[aspen1982]

Thanks for the replies. I've been searching the internet for hours trying to find an answer to this question and its been answered in five minutes on here!!

Really want a CD-Rewriter so looks like I'll just have to put up with a slow one but that doesn't really bother me that much.

Thanks again.

 

[jeremy.king]

You can replace the internal drive - although its a bit pricey

http://www.mcetech.com/imacrw.html

 

[26139]

Just to clarify...

Any USB cd, dvd writer or hard drive won't necessarily be slow, but the transfer rate of the data WILL be (meaning that once the data is copied to the temp cd file, the burner will be just as fast as a USB 2.0). I know that doesn't seem like it would make a difference (and it won't in terms of overall time it takes to do something) but I thought you should know.
So, what this means is that if you get a new computer the new USB 2.0 drive will transfer data at the faster speed and burn at the same fast speed. Get it?

 

[jeremy.king]

Any USB cd, dvd writer or hard drive won't necessarily be slow, but the transfer rate of the data WILL be (meaning that once the data is copied to the temp cd file, the burner will be just as fast as a USB 2.0). I know that doesn't seem like it would make a difference (and it won't in terms of overall time it takes to do something) but I thought you should know.
So, what this means is that if you get a new computer the new USB 2.0 drive will transfer data at the faster speed and burn at the same fast speed. Get it?

a USB 2.0 burner (no matter how fast) can only burn at roughly 4x on a USB 1.1 connection. Otherwise a buffer underrun (or similar error) will happen becuase the data can only get to the drive at a rate of 12Mbps. Get it?

The bottleneck of the bus causes you to burn at a slower speed.

 

[Bear]

 

[Blue Velvet]

If you're running 10.3, check the Apple System Profiler - You should see "USB High Speed Bus" - this is USB 2.0.

The Powermac MDD Dual 1.42 is USB 2 capabale, but Apple didn't provide a device driver for it until 10.3.

I have a dual 1.42, which is how I know.

I am running 10.3.4 on my dual 1.42 but see no "High Speed Bus" bit... in fact, under speed it says "Up to 12 Mb/sec"

Am I missing something here?

 

[Bear]

Very Simply...

Hi,
I was hoping somebody could help clarify something for me....all the talk of USB 2.00, 1.1 and 1.0 is confusing me a little. How do I know which my computer has? I have 2 USB ports on my Bondi Blue iMac but which kind are they? I want to buy a CD-Rewriter but some say reduced speed with USB 1.1.
Many thanks.

Very simply...

All G3s that have USB, have USB 1.0/1.1

The Powermac G4 MDD that supports Airport Extreme should be USB 2.0 capable. This would be the MDD FW800 systems. However, Apple has chosen not to enable this feature it seems. (Yes, it is a USB 2 controller, just not enable for USB 2.0 by Mac OS X)

The iMac & iBook G4s as well as the eMac should have gotten USB 2.0 support at about the same time they received Airport Extreme support.

As for the Powerbooks, I think only the Aluminum ones (w/Airport Extreme of course) support USB 2.0.

All G5s support USB 2.0

Basically as you can see, if a system has Airport Extreme, it probably has USB 2.0 otherwise it probably has USB1.0/1.1.

 

[Bear]

I am running 10.3.4 on my dual 1.42 but see no "High Speed Bus" bit... in fact, under speed it says "Up to 12 Mb/sec"

Am I missing something here?

My mistake. I know the chip in the MDD FW 800 is USB 2.0 capable. I do have a USB 2.0 PCI card I added. (Which works nicely with the 10.3 supplied drivers.)

Apple must have not enabled the builtin USB 2.0 ports like I thought they did. (Or maybe it was only enabled on an earlier version of 10.3)

 

[Blue Velvet]

My mistake. I know the chip in the MDD FW 800 is USB 2.0 capable. I do have a USB 2.0 PCI card I added. (Which works nicely with the 10.3 supplied drivers.)

Apple must have not enabled the builtin USB 2.0 ports like I thought they did. (Or maybe it was only enabled on an earlier version of 10.3)

Oh poo!

There's nothing worse than knowing that what you've got is capable, just that it needs 'turning on' before you can use it.

Still... thanks for the short-lived moment of joy!

 

[Bear]

Oh poo!

There's nothing worse than knowing that what you've got is capable, just that it needs 'turning on' before you can use it.

Still... thanks for the short-lived moment of joy!

Of course, getting a USB 2.0 PCI card is usually under $20. And in my case, it avoids having to have a hub. So I don't need a place to plug in another powerbrick.

I also got a 3 port firewire card to avoid having to deal with a firewire hub and its powerbrick.

And I've read too many stories where various devices didn't like being plugged into hubs (even powered ones).