Portable and External HDD opinions

[Strauss]

The advantage Firewire (even the OLD pre-2003 firewire 400) has over USB 2...

- USB requires a PC/Mac in between devices to function. So if you OS gets bogged down, it will drastically affect transfers.

- FireWire (present and old 400Mb/s) can work directly between devices. e.g. Between a camera and hard drive, DVD player and Receiver, camera to camera, Playstations etc.

Therefore the sustained rates of Firewire transfers are faster, especially when dealing with huge graphic and video files.

[saxman642]

FireWire B = 800 Mbits/second
FireWire A = 400Mbits/second
USB 2.0 = 480 Mbits/second

FIXED. Not everyone has (or can readily afford) firewire B devices, sir. Sorry if I was only thinking of firewire A

e-SATA ftw still.

[Razkal]

IMO opinion...Western Digital is the best way to go....no problems with 2 250 GIG and recently started using a 500 GIG

de phoq!?

You know how long i want ah 320G external...you using WD and yuh cyah tell ah indo trini nun?

Link the sheit ni99a...i hadda get one, not any rush, but you know my situation home, tha pc on the verge of erupting and doing some crazy sheit

[originalbling]

^^ check powerseller Raptor - he got the 320GB at bess price

[ru$$ell]

^i think he rather steal it from his cousin for free than fork out money for one

[Strauss]

FireWire B = 800 Mbits/second
FireWire A = 400Mbits/second
USB 2.0 = 480 Mbits/second

FIXED. Not everyone has (or can readily afford) firewire B devices, sir. Sorry if I was only thinking of firewire A

e-SATA ftw still.

Sorry dood.

I really keep forgetting that PC's dont come with standard FireWire 800.

If someone is in a high-end Macintosh environment, they have a tendency to lean towards FireWire drives for speed where video is concerned. Remember Macs can also network over FireWire 800, instead of Ethernet.

I didn't mean to come across harsh, but this is my area. And sometimes I get a little pissed when false information is spread.

FireFire "B" devices are all around. If you are a Pro, you will ignore the little higher price and just get the damn thing.


Also, tests done show that "FireWire" and "FireWire A" 400Mb/s *IS* faster than USB 2.0's 480Mb/s for sustained transfers of large files (e.g. video)... not copying/moving, but to read/write to and from drives.

Again this has to do with how they work in the real world.

[Strauss]

Scully.

If you not going LACIE Big Disk Extreme+ 1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822154185

Then it's Iomega 34270 USB 2.0 500GB Prestige Desktop Hard Drive
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-34270-500G ... PDKIKX0DER

I just bought some more RAM for my mac and going to pick up one of theses. I just need a Time Machine backup so might go with the cheaper option for home till I get the RAID box.

[Raziel]

Strauss, it's horses for courses ... in a PC world, I probably wouldn't recommend firewire, go USB if your prime need is portability, eSATA if it's performance.

[Razkal]

^i think he rather steal it from his cousin for free than fork out money for one

U are the smartestest guy i know ru$$!!

[bushwakka]

strauss is correct, firewire 800 is loads faster than USB 2.0 for more reasons than just the posted transfer rate

but i'm gonna point out that USB 3.0 is due to come onstream at a posted transfer rate of 600 MB/s

but my preference for now is eSATA which gives me better transfer rates than firewire 800

[Michael Knight...]

Make sure you wrap it in some sponge. If you only knock it a little bit by accident that's it, it's done. Especially iOMEGA.

I lost 5 that way.

[Strauss]

Strauss, it's horses for courses ... in a PC world, I probably wouldn't recommend firewire, go USB if your prime need is portability, eSATA if it's performance.

I'll ignore USB 2.0 (480Mb/s) cuz it's the slowest of the bunch (even slower than a 400Mb/s firewire).

But those in the PC world who want eSATA need have an eSATA port or get a card, which I suppose is minor seeing that the same might apply with FireWire.

FireWire is so little faster than eSATA as a single drive that you could say they are the same. If you find FireWire 800 seems slower, then it would be true if your FireWire is on a card like PCI (and not running at full buss speed), which has limited bandwidth.

All things being equal (card/on-board, RPM etc), you would only see FireWire faster than eSATA for large files - mostly video. So for average use, it's really a flip of a coin or personal preference.

Now you would see an even bigger difference if you are running a FW800 RAID compared to eSATA.

Reason being...
- FireWire works independent of your PC's CPU. No CPU hits will affect transfers.
- Because of above point, FW can read/write directly to your hard drive.
- FireWire operates above rated specs for sustained speeds and large read/writes.

To really drop the bomb, you can have a dual/quad channel FireWire RAID setup, "bridged" to a ridiculous bandwidth.

But if you are not doing video or working with large files and lots of pages-in/outs then eSATA and FW800 is no real world difference.

[Strauss]

Just thought this interesting...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822186067