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imacintel

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 12, 2006
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To transfer my data from my iMac to my Macbook? Should I take advantage of 1000 base-t ethernet or use firewire 400? I do have a router I replaced with an Airport Express to use ethernet.


Which is better?
 
You boot the Mac you want to transfer your data from while holding down the T key; this will make it start up in FireWire Target Disk mode (it now functions as a FireWire hard disk).

Then you just connect the two computers with a FireWire cable and the Mac OS X installation will copy all your data onto your new Apple computer the first time you run the new computer or with the Migration Assistant found under Applications -> Utilities.
 
When I do a transfer of big files over Airport it can take ages. Not sure why its supposed to be 54mbs right? Maybe someone can clear that up for me.

Anyhoo... because of that I transfer big files via FireWire cable and starting up one of the Macs in FireWire Disk mode by holding down 'T' as it starts up while connected to the other Mac. Much faster! :)
 
stuartluff said:
When I do a transfer of big files over Airport it can take ages. Not sure why its supposed to be 54mbs right? Maybe someone can clear that up for me.

WI-FI is bidirectional, meaning the 802.11g standard offers 54Mbps down but only 22Mbps up. For comparison FireWire is 400Mbps up and down.
 
Pressure said:
WI-FI is bidirectional, meaning the 802.11g standard offers 54Mbps down but only 22Mbps up.

So that means? :eek: :D

Let me guess. It fires it up to the base at 22 then gets sent to the mac at 54? Meaning the up part is the bottleneck?

Even so it still seems much slower than that. :confused:

Also if FireWire 400 is 400mbps that means that an 800mb file would take 2 seconds to transfer but it doesnt. Why is that? Pardon my ignorance :D
 
Eidorian said:
Get a ethernet cable that can handle gigabit. You're not going to need a crossover cable for your Macs.

I wish I had known that a crossover wasn't needed.... would have made my life simpler when I went from the iBook to the MacBook.

Always learning something new :)
 
stuartluff said:
So that means? :eek: :D

Let me guess. It fires it up to the base at 22 then gets sent to the mac at 54? Meaning the up part is the bottleneck?

Even so it still seems much slower than that. :confused:

Also if FireWire 400 is 400mbps that means that an 800mb file would take 2 seconds to transfer but it doesnt. Why is that? Pardon my ignorance :D

It basically means you can receive at a data rate of 54Mbps but only upload 22Mbps. The upload part is the bottleneck.

Do take notice that megabit is not the same as megabyte.

FireWire 400 is in the neighborhood of 50MB/s.
 
It says on my iMac box 1000 base T. Would that mean I can go a 1000 MBits A Second?
 
Abstract said:
Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. Mb is megabits, while a MB is a megabyte. Big difference. ;)

Thanks for that. That would explain why everything seems 'slow' :D

Pray tell what exactly is a Megabit then?

Yes I know Im a dumbass. :eek:

EDIT: Ok Ive done a spot of research. 8bits make up a byte. So (im crap at maths) but that means that Airport Extreme at 54Mbits transfers data at 7megabytes a second?

Apologies for the hijack but this has confused me for ages :D

EDIT 2: Oh its all falling into place now. Thats why when I download stuff and it says 500kbps downloading a 10MB file it takes about 40 seconds instead of 20. :D
 
stuartluff said:
Thanks for that. That would explain why everything seems 'slow' :D

Pray tell what exactly is a Megabit then?

Yes I know Im a dumbass. :eek:

EDIT: Ok Ive done a spot of research. 8bits make up a byte. So (im crap at maths) but that means that Airport Extreme at 54Mbits transfers data at 7megabytes a second?

Apologies for the hijack but this has confused me for ages :D

It's fair enough, its like the internet. I pay for 1Meg, so why can't I download at 1meg per second, but it just doesnt work like that. I learned the hard way a while ago. Don't call yourself a dumbass tho, its only easy if you know the answer. ;)
 
stuartluff said:
Thanks for that. That would explain why everything seems 'slow' :D

Pray tell what exactly is a Megabit then?

Yes I know Im a dumbass. :eek:

EDIT: Ok Ive done a spot of research. 8bits make up a byte. So (im crap at maths) but that means that Airport Extreme at 54Mbits transfers data at 7megabytes a second?

Apologies for the hijack but this has confused me for ages :D

EDIT 2: Oh its all falling into place now. Thats why when I download stuff and it says 500kbps downloading a 10MB file it takes about 40 seconds instead of 20. :D

Actually it's a bit under 7MB/s and the usual overhead introduced if it is a secure network.

Things as distance also makes a difference, the longer you are away from the AirPort the worser the signal is going to be and this will in return have an adverse effect on the speed between the network.

We can always learn something new heh :)

The new 802.11n protocol are going to be 200-300Mbps, so it will vastly improve upon the 802.11g protocol the AirPort Extreme is currently using.
 
Pressure said:
The new 802.11n protocol are going to be 200-300Mbps, so it will vastly improve upon the 802.11g protocol the AirPort Extreme is currently using.

Oh crap... you shouldnt of said that. Does that mean new cards etc wil needed or will it be a software/firmware upgrade. Dont fancy paying another £300 for another Airport set up.
 
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