When cloning a drive, USB or FW800?

S

Shivetya

macrumors 68000
I am going to upgrade my MBP's HDD.

However when reviewing options for the sata enclosure I have USB and FW800 options (I am using the macsales bundles as a guideline - I might even a 'kit' from them even though it carries a premium)

My question is, how much longer would one take versus the other? I figure only 100g of the data is on the host drive.
 
USB - 25-35 MB/s

FW 800 - 55-65 MB/s


100GB with USB = 68 minutes at 25 MB/s

100GB with FW 800 = 31 minutes at 55 MB/s
 
FW800 always beats USB 2.0. FireWire offers guaranteed bandwidth of 786.432 Mbps. USB 2.0 max spec is 480 Mbps, but rarely achieved.

Only when USB 3.0 makes its debut would you consider not using FW800 if the computer and device are equipped--if your primary objective is transfer speed.
 
Er, I don't think those numbers are actually as meaningful as you think they are in this situation. Many times the speed of the cloning process is determined by how fast the program you're using them can index them.
 
miles01110 said:
Er, I don't think those numbers are actually as meaningful as you think they are in this situation. Many times the speed of the cloning process is determined by how fast the program you're using them can index them.
Click to expand...

That seems to be true with Super Duper, but Carbon Copy Cloner was faster than Super Duper, but I didn't pay attention to transfer speeds.

So, if the cloning software doesn't exceed a transfer speed like 20 MB/s, then USB would suffice, wouldn't it?
 
spinnerlys said:
So, if the cloning software doesn't exceed a transfer speed like 20 MB/s, then USB would suffice, wouldn't it?
Click to expand...

Right.

SuperDuper seems to index and transfer as you go, while CCC clearly looks through all the files before starting the transfer (or at least it appears to). Who knows what Time Machine does.
 
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