Firwire or USB 2
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- lw-d
I have bought an external HD for my mac, I can connect either by Firewire or by USB 2, the manual doesn't say which is the best. Can anyone recommend one over the other.
p.s. I will be using it for backing up files.
Thanks.
- elms0
firewire is faster
- Mojo0
firewire 400: 400mbit/sec
firewire 800: 800mbit/sec
USB1: 11mbit/sec
USB2: 480mbit/secgg
- chossy0
firewire 400 is actually quicker even though usb2 is 480 it has go something to do with the way it interprets data or some shit like that.
Go with fire wire.
- ribit0
Firewire 400 vs USB2 speed comparisons and stuff:
http://www.cwol.com/firewire/fir…
- lw-d0
Great response, thanks. I only have firewire 400 on my G4. I'm using that over USB 2 though, seems fine.
Thanks.
- Fariska0
Apart from firewire/USB fact, the real issue is the real transfer rate of your HD. Be sure it's faster than 50Mb/sec which is the limit of Firewire 400
- madirish0
and aside from that, the even bigger bottle neck in how fast you can transfer data over these connections is the front-end bus speed. i know, i know- too geeky, but this is where the thing get's throttled.
if you got a fast HD, firewire 800, all the great cables in the world, but a slow-ass front-end bus rate well?..... you can only polish a turd so much unfortunantly.