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USB3 Speed
- Thread starter mdq8
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You can't transplant a (functional) USB3 port onto a laptop from 2010, no. Your best bet is either gigabit ethernet, which your laptop probably has, and then transfer the files across a network to/from wherever they need to go, or physically removing your laptop's harddrive and plugging it into another computer, transferring the stuff, then re-mounting the drive in your mac again. Probably only worth the bother if you need to transfer A LOT of stuff tho.
Also, depending on what drive is in your now quite old macbook (if it's whatever came with it as standard or if you upgraded it to something more modern later, and if so how modern exactly), gigabit ethernet might actually be faster than what the drive can deliver, so removing it would be a waste of time anyway.
2.5" laptop drives aren't super well known for their high transfer rate. Especially older ones, as mentioned.
So ethernet would be the easiest method, and quite possibly also just as fast as the more complicated method...
Also, depending on what drive is in your now quite old macbook (if it's whatever came with it as standard or if you upgraded it to something more modern later, and if so how modern exactly), gigabit ethernet might actually be faster than what the drive can deliver, so removing it would be a waste of time anyway.
2.5" laptop drives aren't super well known for their high transfer rate. Especially older ones, as mentioned.So ethernet would be the easiest method, and quite possibly also just as fast as the more complicated method...
ThanksYou can't transplant a (functional) USB3 port onto a laptop from 2010, no. Your best bet is either gigabit ethernet, which your laptop probably has, and then transfer the files across a network to/from wherever they need to go, or physically removing your laptop's harddrive and plugging it into another computer, transferring the stuff, then re-mounting the drive in your mac again. Probably only worth the bother if you need to transfer A LOT of stuff tho.
Also, depending on what drive is in your now quite old macbook (if it's whatever came with it as standard or if you upgraded it to something more modern later, and if so how modern exactly), gigabit ethernet might actually be faster than what the drive can deliver, so removing it would be a waste of time anyway.
So ethernet would be the easiest method, and quite possibly also just as fast as the more complicated method...
Wifi was REALLY slow back in the day, so would almost be better to write out the data in binary by hand, walk it over to the other computer and type it back in...
(Ok, I exaggerate.)
USB2 is also quite a bit slower than gigabit ethernet, but yeah. It would get the job done eventually.
On a 2010 Mac?
Oh yea, I forgot it didn't come out until 2011On a 2010 Mac?
You could get a USB gigabit ethernet adapter for like $10 and use it with the new Mac
Or, take the HD out and get a USB 3.0 SATA adapter
There should be a FW800 port on there. That would be fastest.
your other option is Ethernet 10/100/1000BASE-T (RJ-45) - there is a 1Gbps ethernet on there.
To connect to a TB2 equiped MacBook Pro you could use a https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter
I don't think there are any options for FW800 to USB3 (nor USB3 to ethernet)
Yes, but it'd be slower and more cumbersome and probably also more expensive than just plugging a portable USB drive or flash thumbdrive which one likely already owns into said USB port and using that instead...
Gigabit ethernet > FW800. Base performance is higher, and to transfer files you would need FW800 ports on both computers (these aren't too common anymore). Then you'd need software support for transferring the files... Does MacOS support mounting a remote Mac as a drive to a host Mac? IIRC you can do that over thunderbolt somehow, or could anyway years ago. No idea if the feature still exists.
IIRC MacOS's network stack supports using firewire as a network card, but as the port lacks hardware acceleration support for packetizing data, generating headers, CRC checksums and so on you run the risk of bottlenecking the (by today's standards fairly pedestrian) CPU. Ethernet port is tailored for network data transfers from the start so would have hardware acceleration to at least some level (not sure how extensive it would be back in 2010; would depend on what network chip Apple stuck in there), but you'd get more oomph than a purely software driven effort for sure.
But yeah, it's still an option one can consider...
Yes, but it'd be slower and more cumbersome and probably also more expensive than just plugging a portable USB drive or flash thumbdrive which one likely already owns into said USB port and using that instead...
Gigabit ethernet > FW800. Base performance is higher, and to transfer files you would need FW800 ports on both computers (these aren't too common anymore). Then you'd need software support for transferring the files... Does MacOS support mounting a remote Mac as a drive to a host Mac? IIRC you can do that over thunderbolt somehow, or could anyway years ago. No idea if the feature still exists.
IIRC MacOS's network stack supports using firewire as a network card, but as the port lacks hardware acceleration support for packetizing data, generating headers, CRC checksums and so on you run the risk of bottlenecking the (by today's standards fairly pedestrian) CPU. Ethernet port is tailored for network data transfers from the start so would have hardware acceleration to at least some level (not sure how extensive it would be back in 2010; would depend on what network chip Apple stuck in there), but you'd get more oomph than a purely software driven effort for sure.
But yeah, it's still an option one can consider...
I thought FW supported DMA.... though.
To the OP:
Assuming you want to get data *from* your old Macbook *to* some newer machine once.
If it's, say <100GB then you are probably best off using a USB3.0 flash drive (with USB-A connector). Write speeds are normally Flash limited and you can read the USB drive very quickly on the new machine.
Also saves you a lot of time compared to setting up a local file transfer over a Ethernet connection.
If you have fast internet, then maybe using Dropbox / Google drive etc?
Again lower theoretical speed, but faster than messing around with SW, IP addresses and partially compatible dongles...
Back in my days we had sneakernet of course with floppies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet#Summary_and_background)
Oh you're right, it does! Like Thunderbolt (and unlike USB, ethernet), Firewire is a proper low-level bus like PCI (express, in TB's case) repackaged into a serial form factor. However you still need a protocol of some sort to handle transfers across it. Just having DMA doesn't make data automagically jump over from one computer to the other.
Get both machines on Ethernet. Enable File Sharing on one of them. From the other computer, connect to the shared volume. Drag files over using the Finder.