Ext.Hard Drive; USB or Firewire?

SOLID · Nov 25th, 2002, 02:36 PM

I've been looking for a firewire external hard drive enclosure, without any luck. I've found a USB 2.0 enclosure. I want the drive for Video Editing. Should I holdout and find a firewire one or will the USB one work fine?

MacDoc · Nov 25th, 2002, 07:58 PM

We've got lots of enclosures - FW only or combo -
You definitely want FW for video - some clients are getting both to move data to PCs.
macdoc.com for pricing or email

MacNutt · Nov 25th, 2002, 09:32 PM

FireWire is definitely the more desireable of the two. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Firewire drives are bootable, and USB are not.

Certainly USB would be a lot slower. If that is a factor, then you already know which one you really want.

MacDoc · Nov 25th, 2002, 11:05 PM

USB 2 actually rivals FW in speed but the bootable part is correct - no boot on USB.
There are other connect/disconnect advantages to FW as well
+ the most important part

Apple invented Firewire and "deeded" the name to the rest of the world and won a prestigious award for it to boot

PosterBoy · Nov 25th, 2002, 11:52 PM

FW is 400Mbps, USB2 is 480Mbps.

That said, USB2 requires your CPU tell it what to do, and FW does not resulting in less drag on the rest of the system.

In real world testing, FW can sustain high transfer rates for longer periods of time as well, especially when other processes are running.

FW is bootable, USB2 is not.

Your Mac (if you bought it since 1998) has a FW port built in, you would have to add USB2.

FireWire is definitly the way to go.

--PB

Clockwork · Nov 26th, 2002, 12:12 PM

Is it true that there coming out with firewire 2 or did I just hear a rumor? Anyone hear that as weil?

gordguide · Nov 26th, 2002, 12:40 PM

There is some kind of new bus to be available on the next generation of X-Serve; we may see a highter FW standard there, and Apple is famous for it's January suprises (desktop, etc).

The original FW spec calls for speeds much higher than the current one, so it's not like there's a lot of work to do.

And, as Posterboy pointed out, FW is a peer-to-peer protocol, like SCSI. This means better real-world performance on intensive tasks, despite the near equal "tested" data speeds of USB (or IDE), which need help from the CPU and where you can have one device take control of the bus to the detriment of the others.

PosterBoy · Nov 26th, 2002, 02:12 PM

Didn't the original spec have a max rate of 800Mbps? What I hear about 1394b is that it will be up to 1600Mbps. I am just interested in hearing what they are going to call 1394b. Current front runners for the official name are FireWire2 and GigaWire, but my personal favorite so far is Son of FireWire.

--PB

Heart · Nov 26th, 2002, 08:50 PM

Is USB 2.0 supported by Apple Hardware or Software yet?

My vote is hold out for the Firewire. [img]smile.gif[/img]

PosterBoy · Nov 27th, 2002, 02:31 AM

To get USB2 on a Mac right now you would have to have a tower and buy a PCI card for it, or ahave a PowerBook and a PC Card.

--PB