Editing with Bus-powered External Drive

Hello,
I have a MBP and usually edit using a bus-powered USB drive. It works fine, but I'm wondering if I would get a performance increase if I use a bus-powered Firewire drive. I know Firewire is faster, but if the drive is a 2.5-inch 5400 RPM that's powered by the Firewire port, does it matter?
Thanks.

Yes, FireWire is indeed faster than USB. FW400 is about 40% faster and FW800 about 70% faster for typical throughput. This will be true regardless of hard drive (assuming the same hard drive in any case.)

Similar Messages

  • Bus powered external drive for MacBook

    Hi,
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    Does the MacBook's firewire port provide bus power? Is it sufficient to power a 2.5" external HD?
    Is USB a better option if I want a bus powered HD? Are there any clear advantages to one or the other?

    For the longest time, FireWire was the only practical solution to bus-powered hard drives. FireWire provides a heck of a lot of power (typically 7 to 8W) while USB by definition provides up to 2.5W per port (if powered). FireWire has so many advantages, but cost seems to be the consideration that's won out.
    Current USB bus-powered external drives seem to be feasible because of newer 2.5" drives with reduced power consumption. Still - many drives come with (or they can be bought) cables with two male ends. One end is used for data/power, while the other draws more power from a 2nd powered USB port.
    I have no problem getting a 160 GB WD Passport (Black) USB 2.0 drive to work on my iBook 1.42 or my new MacBook. It does take a while to mount in the OS though, although the same goes for Windows.
    Message was edited by: ypw

  • Bus powered external drive

    I want to buy a small portable external HD (USB2 or Firewire) for my MBP; of course, the bus powered ones have the advantage of being totally portable/free of wires, but I'm wondering if either USB2 or Firewire ports on my MBP would supply enough power? Or would it drain the battery too fast? I plan to at least put the LiveType and Soundtrack files on it and have FCE use it as a scratch disk.
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    Barbara Daniels1 wrote:
    I've looked at the Seagate portable drives again - none of them seem to have an external power source option.
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    Actually, I've never heard of any bus-powered 3.5" hard drive. I don't think the FireWire bus could power even an economical 3.5" drive, and USB 2.0 (even with double USB connection) is probably way too weak either. AFAIK, every bus-powered drives that exist are 2.5" or smaller (sometimes, a combination of two 2.5" drives can be powered by FireWire).

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    Does anyone have a suggestion for a bus powered external hard drive that will work with the Powerbook 17 inch? I had purchased a Simpletech Simpledrive portable USB 100GB bus powered drive and it will not work with my 17 inch. It works with my 15 inch titanium and a G5 but not the 17 inch. Simpletech told me that it isn't getting enough power from the USB ports (I even tried using the adapter to plug it into both ports at the same time).
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    This also happens on the PB 15". It is perceived as a problem. If you check via the System Profiler you will likely see that the USB port output is 500mA. Most drives - in a USB or FW case - need 1A to boot. There are some drives that will boot with 500mA. If a 500mA drive is installed in the USB case it should boot off the bus power. If using a ext HD you can only boot the computer from the FW port and not the USB or PCMCIA slot.
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  • Bus Powered External Hard Drive?

    Can anyone recommend a good bus-powered External Hard Drive that I can use with my iMac? I really like Western Digital's MyBooks, but they require mains power and come with a big power brick, which is pretty messy. I want a hard drive that gets it's power through either USB 2.0 or Firewire. And I'd like something that has at least 250GB of storage. Any suggestions?

    I bought a bus powered OWC laptop drive (100GB 720RPM) for around 170 dollars. But, that was for my laptop, as it's much easier to have a bus powered laptop drive then needing to plug it in to use it. This way I can sit somewhere, not near a power outlet, and be able to use the drive.
    As mentioned in an earlier post, 3.5 Hard Drives require to much power in order to be bus powered.
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    OWC if you really want that bus powered laptop drive.
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    Give it some thought.
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  • Does using two bus powered external devices MacBook Pro 13" put too much strain on the power supply?

    Will daisy chaining two bus powered external devices put too much strain on my 2011 MacBook Pro 13" power supply?  Specifically I would like use ProTools with a LaCie bus powered hard disc and a Digidesign Mbox 2 Pro which is also bus powered with firewire.

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    Other than that, I think in terms of "raw performance" the machines are very equally matched. You're paying for the unibody design, backlight keyboard, SD card and new battery technology for that $200 premium (in addition to the slight CPU bump).

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    If you have a two devices banged out, deleted them and restart.  It should auto detect the devices and load the driver.    I had a problem like this.  That worked for me. 
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  • Macs or mac mini work with blu ray external drives even XL DISC CAPACITIES

    macs or mac mini work with blu ray external drives (BURNERS) even XL DISC CAPACITIES like 128GB?

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  • Are you having problems with the Lacie external drive after upgrading to the new operating system

    Are you having problems with the Lacie external drive after upgrading to OS X Mavericks?

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  • Bus Powered External Firewire (800) Drives and iPod?

    I bought a WD Passport drive, and was pretty upset when i found out that the usb ports on my powerbook cannot power the drive. crap. can the firewire 800 port on my powerbook power these drives:
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  • Bus powered external Firewire drives

    Most portable external drives are now bus powered, many don't even have a power input.
    I wonder how many bus powered Firewire driives I can daisy-chain. Where should I place them, at the beginnig, in the middle, or the end of the daisy chain.
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    tommmy wrote:
    Most portable external drives are now bus powered, many don't even have a power input.
    I wonder how many bus powered Firewire driives I can daisy-chain.
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    What happened is port powered devices are cheaper and many people opt for the lower price than the ones with their own power supplies, so it creates a problem and computer makers had to turn off ports drawing too much power from the comptuer, so people have to run out and get powered hubs.

  • What's the largest capacity bus-powered external hard drive?

    I realize that this isn't a Mac specific question, but I'd really like a recommendation. What's the largest capacity bus-powered (preferably USB) external hard drive available. My new MBP has a 500GB drive so I would need something with probably 640GB or bigger. Problem is I can't find anything over 500GB that's bus-powered. Everything I've found requires an external power supply which is what I'm trying to avoid. If anyone has a recommendation, please share it.

    Have a search on the web for USA retailers who supply empty enclosures and drives separately. The enclosure is the physical case and the bits of circuitry and the physical ports. Tell them what you want and ask him what drives and enclosures he has to suit your purpose and if he can fit the two together for you. I have such a supplier but am in UK.
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  • FCPX editing on internal or external drive for small media files with lots of layers and compositing ?

    I am upgrading my mid 2012 MBP with an internal SSD. I have16 RAM. OS is Mavericks.
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    Everywhere else on the web I read that all media / libraries should be on an external while I edit them. But most of these contributors are using huge video files, HD, which is not my case.
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    Not going for TB as I read there would not be a difference between USB3 and TB on a 7200 rpm external drive (difference is felt when using RAID, r SSD external)
    Thanks!

    I uses external SSD Thunderbolt for my all my editing stuff. I make small projects and only keeps one library at a time on my external drive. When finished I backup the library to another big external. I would strongly recommend external SSD Thunderbolt such as LaCie Rugged 256 GB or 128 GB. I use this setup with my Mac Pro late 2013. I never edit from internal. You could also go for RAID with 4 disks but that might be an overkill.

  • Bus Powered external fw 800 Drive

    Hi! I am going sttrongly concidering buying a Lacie 250GB bus-powered Firewire 800 Hard drive. I know it is bus powered but I can not seem to find out how much energy that it uses to spin up. Would my 15" macbook pro be able to support it through the firewire 800 port while on battery? I am going to buy this drive to acompany Aperture 2 so I can have a good, fast drive to store my files on when I am on the road. This hard drive is found at http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10949.
    Thank You.

    Hi - I have used the Lacie Little Big drives and they are great. I use the 7200 rpm as it's for video and they also have two FW800 ports allowing you to attach as many as you like in a series. It also has a FW400 port for attaching other deivces.
    They also make a Rugged drive that is bus powered but this only has one FW800 port so you would need to swap if media was on several drives for video editing etc.
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    Jonnyukbravo

  • Bus-powered external enclosure, too many choices.

    Hi, I'm shopping for an external enclosure for my Macbook's Sata drive as I just ordered a 7200 Hitachi drive as a replacement, I would like the enclosure to be bus-powered, firewire is a good option but not necessary.
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    Not sure if I can trust the ones on eBay, what are you guys using/usggesting ?
    Francis.

    Hi
    I did exactly the same thing a couple of months ago so that I could save money with the white macbook versus the black. I bought a 120GB drive for my iBook and switched it with the shipped one when the machine arrived from the Apple Store. Result = I get a better specified machine than was available on line (and in white) and a removable 60GB drive with bus power, firewire 800/400 and USB 2.0.
    To get to the point buy one of these:
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    works a dream, is neat and compact, comes with useful short wires, can be powered if necessary, and looks cool.
    I searched for a long time and the OWC enclosure was easily the best for me, even to import to the UK (i.e need to add on a few pounds sterling for customs - still way cheaper and better than alternatives).
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    macbook, PM G4s & G5s, PBG4, iMac G4 & G5   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  
    PM G4 & G5s, PBG4, iMac G4 & G5   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  
    PM G4 & G5s, PBG4, iMac G4 & G5   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

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