External Drives: Is Firewire worth the extra?

Chandler_90 · 28 Jan 2008 at 12:08

Atm I'm looking through external backup options.. and have settled pretty much upon getting a WD MyBook.. probably either a 320GB or a 500GB.

I've had a quick google and haven't really found anything conclusive.

Initially I'm gonna be backing up ~80GB worth of files..
I have my own Backup scripts which will then only do incremental backups.

So, while I am aware there is a speed difference, is Firewire really that much faster and worth the extra ca$h?

Also.. can anyone make any other recommendations on other External options?

Chandler_90 · 28 Jan 2008 at 12:13

Just noticed that you can't get a MyBook with Firewire 800.
Renders my initial question irrelevant.

However.. any suggestions are much appreciated!

Edit -> Just read an article about Firewire 400 V USB2.0

Interesting.. Firewire 400 is actually faster than USB 480 lol!

Cromulent · 28 Jan 2008 at 12:21

Depends. For backup it is not really worth it. For video/audio work it is most definately worth it.

badbob · 28 Jan 2008 at 12:22

I notice the speed increase straight away, always use firewire if it's available.

Chandler_90 · 28 Jan 2008 at 12:33

Cool.
So if I'm only backing stuff up its not really worth the extra 20 - 30 quid.
Cool.. shall get a regular Mybook then

Shoulda pointed out that my backups are probably not gonna be done when there.. they'll be scheduled executions of my batch file.
But.. If I am there I would want them to be quick!

ByteJuggler · 28 Jan 2008 at 12:42

I'd say yes, it's worth it. But, if you have SATA/eSATA, thats even better.

Chandler_90 · 28 Jan 2008 at 12:52

How does eSata connect?
To an internal Sata connector?

rpstewart · 28 Jan 2008 at 13:05

Chandler_90 said:
How does eSata connect?
To an internal Sata connector?

Most of the modern P35 boards have one or two eSATA ports on the I/O backplane. If you don't have that then you can get PCI brackets which route an internal port to the outside, a lot of the self build caddies come with one, not sure about the pre-built ones though.

Kainz · 28 Jan 2008 at 14:59

badbob said:
I notice the speed increase straight away, always use firewire if it's available.

That's the approach I go by. Firewire has better consistent speeds then USB. Both my two Mybooks are Firewire jobbies.

balls · 28 Jan 2008 at 19:37

Firewire 800 is enough to run HD video from an external making it very useful for that sorta thing.

The difference I notice the most is filling my Ipod Fw400 vs usb the difference is significant

Tomsk · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:22

Chandler_90 said:
Cool.
So if I'm only backing stuff up its not really worth the extra 20 - 30 quid.
Cool.. shall get a regular Mybook then

Shoulda pointed out that my backups are probably not gonna be done when there.. they'll be scheduled executions of my batch file.
But.. If I am there I would want them to be quick!

Save your money and get USB or a bigger drive. £20 is the difference between a 500GB and 250GB USB drive.
My external Maxtor 750GB USB reads/writes at about 15MB/sec.

Minstadave · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:57

eSATA is much faster than both USB2.0 and firewire.

At the moment you can pick up drives including an eSATA PCI card for around the same price of a USB2.0 drive of the same capacity.

TheVoice · 29 Jan 2008 at 13:02

Chandler_90 said:
Just noticed that you can't get a MyBook with Firewire 800.

Yes you can; my housemate just bought one last week. It's a MyBook Studio II 500GB, or something along those lines. Silver with white LEDs on the front.

Minstadave · 29 Jan 2008 at 13:18

Just get a "Seagate 500GB External Hard Drive eSATA with eSATA PCI card and Backup Software 16MB Cache" and you'll have the fastest solution available.

Slackworth · 29 Jan 2008 at 13:26

TheVoice said:
Yes you can; my housemate just bought one last week. It's a MyBook Studio II 500GB, or something along those lines. Silver with white LEDs on the front.

Correct.

chrissss · 29 Jan 2008 at 14:19

Got me the Esata 750 gig today. It will arrive soon. I shall post some benchies of how fast it is compared to USB2.

Minstadave · 29 Jan 2008 at 14:27

chrissss said:
Got me the Esata 750 gig today. It will arrive soon. I shall post some benchies of how fast it is compared to USB2.

USB2.0 does around 25MB/s max, eSATA will let the drive max out its sustained read, usually around 85MB/s for a decent 7200rpm drive.

sosrandom · 29 Jan 2008 at 17:41

Make sure you look for reviews cos some of these external drives wont do anywhere near their top speed or USB/FireWire speed (Especially NAS drives)

The bad: The MyBook Premium edition is slow to write data, over both USB 2.0 and FireWire 400.

source CNET

LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Drive (500GB)
Seagate FreeAgent Pro USB/eSATA/FireWire external hard drive (500GB)
Seagate FreeAgent USB(500GB)

are the best ones Ive seen reviewed

chrissss · 29 Jan 2008 at 19:57

Minstadave said:
USB2.0 does around 25MB/s max, eSATA will let the drive max out its sustained read, usually around 85MB/s for a decent 7200rpm drive.

hmmm, Thats weird, I have 2 harddrives and If I were to cut a 6 gig file from my harddrive, and paste it to my other harddrive, its the same speed. 6 gig took 5 minutes, which is 20mb/sec. Why is this? both HDs are in my sig.

Minstadave · 29 Jan 2008 at 21:05

chrissss said:
hmmm, Thats weird, I have 2 harddrives and If I were to cut a 6 gig file from my harddrive, and paste it to my other harddrive, its the same speed. 6 gig took 5 minutes, which is 20mb/sec. Why is this? both HDs are in my sig.

Are they both internal drives?

The reason its slow is because the drives write a lot slower than they read.