USB2 or Firewire external harddrive?

By joro47
in Apple (macOS)

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I think that the difference is so small that you won't notice it, I have used a USB 2 hard disk by Lacie, and it worked as well as the IDE drives in that machine. Also every computer doesn't have Firewire, but every should have USB these days (unless you find a computer that is 5 years old :) ). USB is also usually cheaper, so I'd go with the USB one :)

Grand Master

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Also every computer doesn't have Firewire, but every should have USB these days (unless you find a computer that is 5 years old :) ).

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Well, since you are in the Mac section, it's pretty much a given that all the computers in use here will have FireWire. Every Mac made in the last 5 years does, but only Macs made in the last 18 months or so have USB 2.0.

For the Mac mini, I'd recommend getting a FireWire drive if for no other reason than it will free up one of the USB ports for other things. It WILL be somewhat faster since the speed rating for USB 2.0 is only a burst speed. FireWire has higher sustained throughput than USB 2.0.

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Well, since you are in the Mac section, it's pretty much a given that all the computers in use here will have FireWire.  Every Mac made in the last 5 years does, but only Macs made in the last 18 months or so have USB 2.0.

Yep, I was just thinking about that it is an external hard drive, so he might want to plug it in other computers too. And every computer ain't a mac :). It's always up to what you will do with it and do you want to pay some extra. He stated that he got a mac mini, so theres both connections :)

Grand Master

Martog

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Thanks for the quick answers, i I think I will go for the Firewire from LaCie they have some nicelooking stuff and free USB ports are always good.

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Great choice. The LaCie triple interface drives are a great thing. I believe they use a Western Digital Special Edition 8MB Cache 7200RPM IDE hard drive, and have three different ways to connect, via USB1.1/2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800. Plus LaCie gives you ALL the cables you will ever need. USB 2.0, Firewire 400 6pin to 6pin, Firewire 400 6pin to 4 pin (for PC laptops generally), and Firewire 800 cable. LaCie makes sure you have the drive ready, plus they are more pro-Mac, as my drive was pre-formatted with Mac HFS+ Filesystem! I do notice it is somewhat faster than my laptop's internal drive (5400rpm) but if your mini has a 4200RPM, this will be leaps and bounds faster no doubt.

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dougal.s

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I have a drive with a USB connection and two Firewire connections. With the iBook I use the Firewire, but if I take it round to a friends for some reason, I use the USB on their PC.

I sometimes boot off the external drive when testing other OS's such as Linux, OS X Server, and Tiger beta. I also have a panther partition which is handy in case things ever go pear shaped.

Dougal.

Grand Master

Southern Patriot

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Food for thought: You can boot from an external firewire drive.? You can't boot from a USB drive.

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:rolleyes::

:trout::

YES YOU CAN!!!!!!!!!!! AAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! When are people going to stop spreading this rumor that Macs can't boot from USB???????:argh::

Edited by roadwarrior
Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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Go for firewire a lot quicker, have a look here

http://www.span.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=20_32

They do some nice external harddrive case's and disks.

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you said go for firewire a lot quicker... but the link you showed .. had usb2 beating firewire by 10 meg

Grand Master

Southern Patriot

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you said go for firewire a lot quicker... but the link you showed .. had usb2 beating firewire by 10 meg

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Yeah, but it's those "up to's" that get ya. As stated earlier, the sustained transfer rates for FireWire are higher than for USB 2.0.

That was a weird link to post though, I didn't really see much info there relating to performance differences.

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