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Which hard drive to get?

believo

believo

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 21, 2004
161
0
Los Angeles, CA
Lacie Porsche 500GB External USB 2.0 - $185
Lacie Porsche 250GB External Firewire - $125

I want the 500GB but is USB incredibly slow. Is this a bad move?

thanks
 
believo said:
Lacie Porsche 500GB External USB 2.0 - $185
Lacie Porsche 250GB External Firewire - $125

I want the 500GB but is USB incredibly slow. Is this a bad move?

thanks
Click to expand...

USB took me a few hours to back up my 50GB macbook. It was bootable, but slow.
 
I own an external USB 2.0 Hard Drive and they are not slow like you think. Looking at the Lacie Porsche 500GB External USB 2.0, it have good speed. I tranfer many big file with USB 2.0 and I'm happy with the speed. Looking at the FireWire, it will be a little faster then the USB 2.0 but the USB one is a better deal.
 
Depends on the usage of the ext HD:

For just backups, 500GB USB makes sense even though its slower.

For usage as a scratch disk for video editing etc, get the faster 250GB FW.
 
FireWire's only barely faster in the actual transfer rates, but it doesn't have to compress anything so it's more reliable, plus slightly faster still. However, my USB 2.0 drives are not slow unless I boot from them, so I wouldn't worry about it unless you plan to do that or need every available bit of speed possible. Basically, for video/sound editing, get the faster one (or a larger FireWire one for the best of both), but otherwise the 500GB's a better deal.

jW
 
Firewire 400 or 800? Regardless firewire is still a little faster.

It took about an hour to transfer about 50gb via firewire 800.
 
Mal said:
FireWire's only barely faster in the actual transfer rates, but it doesn't have to compress anything so it's more reliable, plus slightly faster still.
Click to expand...
For large transfers (1.3 Gb Garageband Folder, mix of large and small files), Firewire 400 is almost exactly twice as fast as USB 2.0 (I benchmarked it with the same data, same hard drive mechanism, same MacMini).
 
It seems like advice is about 50/50.


Maybe if I give more info you all can give me a second opinion:

I'll be using it for backup of files mostly but also watching and listening to media like large mpg clips, mp3s, etc. I won't be editing but just watching and listening. Based on this, should I get USB or firewire?


thanks again for your help.
 
Based on that, I'd say go Firewire. You'll appreciate there not being a significant lag time when you skip around in video, or any pauses between songs in iTunes. I got that on USB, didn't get that on Firewire.
 
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