External Hard Drive Delays?

What can I expect when using an external HD not as a backup drive, but as a working drive. Basically all the music, photos and movies are starting to burn up my 60GB HD. I remember when I got it, was like "Man, what the hel am I going to do with 60GB?"
I am basically interested in delays while pulling photos or music up? Is there anything to worry about? I do very little editing, and I assume I would work on any movie projects on the Apple HD, then export it to the external when I needed to.
Pricing on having someone else replace the internal is too expensive, and I'm not sure I can do it myself.
I intend to export all photos, movies and music to the external and keep the internal sparse.
800 Mhz G4 FP iMac Mac OS X (10.4.4) 1GB RAM, Superdrive

Veekay,With the iMac 800 you have a few choices. The first is to decide on size/portablity:
3.5" External - Up to about 400Gb, 7,200rpm is normal. Seperate PSU req'd. Quite large.
2.5" External - Up to maximum 160Gb, 5,400rpm is the average speed. No seperate PSU require. Very slim form factor.
So you need to choose between storage space and size.
Next you have choice of connection. The iMac 800 has USB1.1 and FW400:
Firewire. Drive is may be bootable(check with retailer) (so you can back-up the OS too) and up to 400MBps transfer speed. Drive can be daisy chained so no Hub required.
USB. Drive is not bootable (work with data and applications only). Transfer speed bursts at 12Mbps but probably less. May require USB hub.
The only advantage of USB is that there are far more available. Firewire is the connector of choice and although it won't be quite as fast as the Internal IDE it should be fast enough to work with.
HTH
mrtotes

Similar Messages

Delay on save as external hard drive spins up

I have an issue with Snow Leopard that seems new.
Often when I go to save a document there is a significant delay while the external hard drive spins up. This happens also sometimes when I go to open a file from within an application.
I have spotlight set to not index that drive. How can I stop my computer from thinking that something I may want to save to the external hard drive? I would like to ignore it all together except for when I use Time Machine.

You can try the energy saver settings, telling OS X to not spin down drives. However, for external drives, often they do their own thing.
There's no way to do what you want, unfortunately. The standard file dialog will probe all attached drives, so when you try to save, and the drive is spun down, it will wake and respond. As you've noted, this can take a few seconds.

IPod cannot be synced because external hard drive could not be read

I moved my music folder to an external hard drive to create space on my laptop, and changed the location under Preferences / Advanced. Since I did this, my iPod trys to automatically sync but gives the error message "The iPoD "[name]" cannot be synced. The disk could not be read from or written to." The external hard drive is on and working. Is there some reason that the iPod will not sync with this external hard drive? What do I need to do to fix it? Thanks, Bill

First question, since you made
the change, can you still play your music from within
iTunes?
Patrick
Sorry for the delay in answering as I have been traveling. Yes, I can play music from iTunes. The music is located on my external hard drive. iTunes software is on my laptop, and the music library points to the music folder on my external hard drive.
Thanks, Bill
Dell Laptop Windows XP

How to stop my Time Machine external hard drive preventing iMac from sleeping?

I have a late 2012 iMac, and have discovered that sometimes (I haven't noticed a pattern of when it doesn/doesn't happen) the computer will immediately wake up after I set it to Sleep (Apple Menu>Sleep). Through elimination I have found that it is the the USB 3.0 external hard drive I use as a Time Machine back-up that is the culprit; unplugging it then allows the computer to sleep. If I unplug it, then plug it back in later on, this normally solves the problem for a while, but not forever. This same Hard Drive didn't cause the wake problem on my previous '08 iMac.
A big issue is that when the machine immediately wakes from sleep, the display stays off (until I move the mouse) - this is good from a power saving point of view, but means I don't know if/when the machine is immediately waking from sleep (I have to listen to the fan when setting it to Sleep mode to hear if it has actually woken back up).
I've searched the forums, but can't find another poster with the same problem as myself. Can anyone advise a course for me to pursue to prevent this from happening?
Thanks. Jamie

Hi Frank. Nope, I'm still having the same symptoms; the plugged in external drive (TIme Machine) will wake the machine up a couple of seconds after it winding down when put to into sleep mode. Ejecting the drive and then sleeping the machine works. After plugging it in again to do a Time machine backup, it will allow the computer to sleep soundly for the first few sessions (eg a few days of sleeping, waking, sleeping, waking, etc), but then it will then suddenly start preventing it from sleeping again after a while.
It seems I'm fortunate in my case that the display stays dark (or off?) when the machine has been woken from sleep, but this was actually preventing me from knowing the machine wasn't in fact asleep for quite some time; I only eventually cottoned on because there wasn't any delay when 'waking' my machine (which there normally is). I would then have to carefully listen to the spinning fans to know if in fact it had gone to sleep or not.
So, to summarise, unfortunately no, I haven't solved this yet. If anyone else has a solution, please let us know?
Also, I've noticed occasionally after waking that there is a relatively quiet 'crackle' sound (kind of electrical sounding) from the bottom-right area of the machine. This goes on every so often for about 30mins. I see this is also an issue with other people's late 2012 iMacs, but I've not seen if anyone has a solution to it?

Time Capsule, Apple TV, and External Hard Drive

I currently have a Macbook with OS X 10.4, and an external 250GB hard drive. I want to purchase Leopard OS X, Time Capsule, and Apple TV. My goal is to copy my music, movies, and pictures onto the Apple TV for viewing on my tv. I also would like to store my music, pictures, and documents on the Time Capsule for the default location, due to storage space. I have more files than I have room on my Macbook. I don't want to hook up the external hard drive every time I use my computer. I would like to access it all wirelessly. My question is will this work ok and can I read my files off of the Time Capsule without delay to where the music, movies, and photos won't play or view without a glitch. Also am I purchasing something I don't need. The main goal is to store the files on an external device in order to gain space on my Macbook and not have to hook up the external hard drive every time. Thanks for the help!!

Hello, seems like you wanted to do pretty much what i wanted to do. that is free up space on lap top. But still have instant access to your itunes stuff. I found a solution that works for me.
I have a portable WD hdd attached to my time capsule via usb, i then access both through the capsules wireless connection, using the TC for time machine.
The Apple tv then accesses my itunes lib through my MBP via TC's wireless. I did however connect the WD Hdd directly to my MBP for the initial transfer to the apple tv, but itunes seems to find the lib as long as its there, doesnt matter if its connected to MBPs usb or the TCs usb. Sometimes it might revert to the default location, but i've found that if you click on a song it still plays, then if you close then reopen itunes every thing goes back to your external hdd...
Which means if you go away or want your itunes lib on the move you just need a little WD hdd.
I'm not totally sure if its worked yet but i connected my WD hdd to my MBP vie usb and told the TC to back up that too by going to options in TM preferences, seems to have worked, not sure if it would work while connected to the TC usb connection, doesnt seem to.
NB:Before you do this do a back up of everything in you Itunes Lib on your TC incase you screw up.
(For easy transfer of your itunes lib go to preferences on itunes and create a folder called iTunes Music on your Hdd then close preferences and allow itunes to do its thing, then in itunes go to
file - library - consolidate library, itunes. Itunes then makes a copy of all music on your new hdd. I then deleted the tunes off my MBP)
Just make sure you open your finder and click on the TC to wake the drive before you open Itunes other wise you'll have to go in to preferences and keep altering the location for your itunes folder. which can take i tunes a while.
This method seems to cope with video and music just fine.
Well hope that wasn't too confusing, as i confuse myself at times.
Good Luck.........

Time Machine no longer sees my External Hard Drive

I am running an Apple iMac 27" Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz with MAC OS X v.10.6.4
I have been using a LaCie 500GB External Hard Drive exclusively assigned to my Time Machine Backups. This has been working fine for the past 6 months. Now, this USB externally powered hard drive no longer shows up on my desktop. It no longer shows up in the Finder either.
Where it does show up is in the Apple Menu: About This Mac | More Info... | Hardware | USB | USB High-Speed BUS as "LaCie Hard Drive USB" with all of its specifications:
LaCie Hard Drive USB:
Product ID: 0x0951
Vendor ID: 0x059f (LaCie)
Version: 0.00
Serial Number: 152D203380B6
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: LaCie
Location ID: 0x24300000
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 2
HD appears to be spinning and emits a steady vibration that I observed before when it was working fine. One single soft click is heard on startup. Yellow solid light indicates drive is operational. I never see a blinking light when this HD starts up, it shows a solid yellow light right away.
From a "Time Machine Widget", I see that my Time Machine backup is failing with message:
Error -35 while resolving alias to backup target
Backup failed with error: 19
When I go to Apple Menu / System Preferences / Time Machine, I see that the Time Machine is turned ON with this information:
Name: Time Machine Backups
Available: <empty>
Oldest Backup: <empty>
Latest Backup: Delayed <--- this is in red
Next Backup: when disk is connected
To resolve my problem:
I tried shutting down & restarting the MAC while the Ext. HD was turned ON but it refuses to appear.
I tried unplugging & replugging at the USB connection but MAC does not respond either way. No nasty message for having improperly disconnected a drive and no message to acknowledge a newly connected drive. The drive is totally ignored.
I can't use the Disk Utility tool to verify or repair the HD because the drive does not appear on the left pane.
Before I declare 6 months of Time Machine backups as forever lost and buy a new backup drive is there anything else I can do?

W e e e e l l l l l or should I say wheeeeeieeeee! Solved - Thank You
I could not use "Disk Utility" because as I already stated, it did not show the HD on the left pane to allow me to do anything about the invisible drive.
So I followed through with your suggestion to switch the USB cable. This was an easy thing to do as I happen to have another of these LaCie Drives that I use on another of my computers. I turned the faulty drive OFF, switched the cable (the power cable fell off in the process & I plugged that back in), turned the HD back ON, waited about 30 seconds and the MAC recognized the drive and popped it back on my desktop & Finder, then Time Machine started the Backup.
I did not have to restart the MAC.
I was skeptical that the USB cable could be the culprit but indeed it was!
Time Machine completed its backup while I was writing this.
Problem Solved and Thank you k.panic

I backed up my iPhoto library manually to an external hard drive. How do I restore it?

I backed up select portions of my hard drive to an external hard drive. At the time, I didn't realize that it was going to be so hard to recover the original photos from the iPhoto library. The backup is basically just a command-line "cp" of the iPhoto Library directory. What's the best way to either recover the original photos or restore the iPhoto library to a new computer?

OK, sorry for the delay. Holidays and whatnot.
Sooooo... the backup was basically a command line "cp -r", however the partition that I backed up to on the external drive was FAT32. So that explains why it's no longer a package. Clearly a mistake on my part, but still need to find a way to recover.
I tried to rebuild the library DB, but it just bails out with the same exact message ("You can't open your current photo library using this version of iPhoto. You have made changes to your photo library using a newer version of iPhoto. Please quit and use the latest version of iPhoto.").
So crap. Should I keep trying to find a way to get iPhoto to recognize my backed up library, or should I give up on that approach and just try to manually get my photos out of the backup? If the latter, what's the best way to do that? I see an "Originals" subfolder, does that have all my photos in it (I only care about originals, don't care about edits)? What about the "Data" subfolder, which also seems to have some photos?

IMac freezes for a few seconds after external hard drive wakes up

24-inch iMac, early 2008. 4GB RAM.
I hear my external hard drive spin up as if it's been not spinning (totally possible; I only use it for Time Machine backups and iMovie archive storage)
During this spin-up process, my iMac (Mountain Lion, latest version) freezes momentarily--keyboard, mouse, screen--but audio remains faithful and music keeps playing.
After about 5 seconds of this delay, the thing catches up with itself and everything I was doing during the freeze gets processed and displayed. (e.g., I may have been typing a sentence and didn't hear the disk spin up at first; once the disk "comes back to life" everything I typed appears on screen as if everything was being typed really quickly--as if my keystrokes were just delayed while the disk spun up.)
Anyone know what's going on or have a solution to this annoying problem?
I'm comfy with the Terminal if any uber geeks want to take a crack at it.
Thanks!

go to apple logo > system preferences > spotlight
then
there are two tabs
choose "Privacy"
drag the external into the spolight privacy section
OR
hit the "+" at the bottom left > navagate to the external > and choose it
whats happening is that spotlight indexes when you turn it on and potentially slows the computer down
also
if it is a Time Machine backup it is pointless as Time Machine mirror images your internal drive to the external
meaning
spotlight has two of the extact same files and folders it has to organize
aka
pointless
let me know how it goes

How to move huge HD video files between external hard drives and defrag ext drive?

I have huge high definition video files on a 2TB external hard drive (and its clone). The external hard drive is maxed out. I would like to move many of the video files to a new 3TB external hard drive (G-drive, and a clone) and leave a sub-group of video files (1+ TB) on the original external hard drive (and its clone).
I am copying files from original external drive ("ext drive A") to new external drive ("ext drive B") via Carbon Copy Cloner (selecting iMovie event by event that I want to transfer). Just a note: I do not know how to partition or make bootable drives, I see suggestions with these steps in them.
My questions:
1.) I assume this transfer of files will create extreme fragmentation on drive A. Should I reformat/re-initialize ext drive A after moving the files I want? If so, how best to do this? Do I use "Erase" within Disk Utilities? Do I need to do anything else before transfering files back onto ext drive A from its clone?
2.) Do I also need to defrag if I reformat ext drive A? Do I defrag instead of or in addition to reformating? If so, how to do this? I've read on these forums so many warnings and heard too many stories of this going awry. Which 3rd party software to use?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions, tips, advice. This whole process makes me SO nervous.

Here is a very good writeup on de-fragging in the OS environment that I borrowed
From Klaus1:
Defragmentation in OS X:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375 which states:
You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X. Here's why:
Hard disk capacity is generally much greater now than a few years ago. With more free space available, the file system doesn't need to fill up every "nook and cranny." Mac OS Extended formatting (HFS Plus) avoids reusing space from deleted files as much as possible, to avoid prematurely filling small areas of recently-freed space.
Mac OS X 10.2 and later includes delayed allocation for Mac OS X Extended-formatted volumes. This allows a number of small allocations to be combined into a single large allocation in one area of the disk.
Fragmentation was often caused by continually appending data to existing files, especially with resource forks. With faster hard drives and better caching, as well as the new application packaging format, many applications simply rewrite the entire file each time. Mac OS X 10.3 onwards can also automatically defragment such slow-growing files. This process is sometimes known as "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering."
Aggressive read-ahead and write-behind caching means that minor fragmentation has less effect on perceived system performance.
Whilst 'defragging' OS X is rarely necessary, Rod Hagen has produced this excellent analysis of the situation which is worth reading:
Most users, as long as they leave plenty of free space available , and don't work regularly in situations where very large files are written and rewritten, are unlikely to notice the effects of fragmentation on either their files or on the drives free space much.
As the drive fills the situations becomes progressively more significant, however.
Some people will tell you that "OSX defrags your files anyway". This is only partly true. It defrags files that are less than 20 MB in size. It doesn't defrag larger files and it doesn't defrag the free space on the drive. In fact the method it uses to defrag the smaller files actually increases the extent of free space fragmentation. Eventually, in fact, once the largest free space fragments are down to less than 20 MB (not uncommon on a drive that has , say only 10% free space left) it begins to give up trying to defrag altogether. Despite this, the system copes very well without defragging as long as you have plenty of room.
Again, this doesn't matter much when the drive is half empty or better, but it does when it gets fullish, and it does especially when it gets fullish if you are regularly dealing with large files , like video or serious audio stuff.
If you look through this discussion board you will see quite a few complaints from people who find that their drive gets "slow". Often you will see that say that "still have 10 or 20 gigs free" or the like. On modern large drives by this stage they are usually in fact down to the point where the internal defragmentation routines can no longer operate , where their drives are working like navvies to keep up with finding space for any larger files, together with room for "scratch files", virtual memory, directories etc etc etc. Such users are operating in a zone where they put a lot more stress on their drives as a result, often start complaining of increased "heat", etc etc. Most obviously, though, the computer slows down to a speed not much better than that of molasses. Eventually the directories and other related files may collapse altogether and they find themselves with a next to unrecoverable disk problems.
By this time, of course, defragging itself has already become just about impossible. The amount of work required to shift the data into contiguous blocks is immense, puts additional stress on the drive, takes forever, etc etc. The extent of fragmentation of free space at this stage can be simply staggering, and any large files you subsequently write are likely to be divided into many , many tens of thousands of fragments scattered across the drive. Not only this, but things like the "extents files", which record where all the bits are located, will begin to grow astronomically as a result, putting even more pressure on your already stressed drive, and increasing the risk of major failures.
Ultimately this adds up to a situation where you can identify maybe three "phases" of mac life when it comes to the need for defragmentation.
In the "first phase" (with your drive less than half full), it doesn't matter much at all - probably not enough to even make it worth doing.
In the "second phase" (between , say 50% free space and 20% free space remaining) it becomes progressively more useful, but , depending on the use you put your computer to you won't see much difference at the higher levels of free space unless you are serious video buff who needs to keep their drives operating as efficiently and fast as possible - chances are they will be using fast external drives over FW800 or eSata to compliment their internal HD anyway.
At the lower end though (when boot drives get down around the 20% mark on , say, a 250 or 500 Gig drive) I certainly begin to see an impact on performance and stability when working with large image files, mapping software, and the like, especially those which rely on the use of their own "scratch" files, and especially in situations where I am using multiple applications simultaneously, if I haven't defragmented the drive for a while. For me, defragmenting (I use iDefrag too - it is the only third party app I trust for this after seeing people with problems using TechToolPro and Drive Genius for such things) gives a substantial performance boost in this sort of situation and improves operational stability. I usually try to get in first these days and defrag more regularly (about once a month) when the drive is down to 30% free space or lower.
Between 20% and 10% free space is a bit of a "doubtful region". Most people will still be able to defrag successfully in this sort of area, though the time taken and the risks associated increase as the free space declines. My own advice to people in this sort of area is that they start choosing their new , bigger HD, because they obviously are going to need one very soon, and try to "clear the decks" so that they maintain that 20% free buffer until they do. Defragging regularly (perhaps even once a fortnight) will actually benefit them substantially during this "phase", but maybe doing so will lull them into a false sense of security and keep them from seriously recognising that they need to be moving to a bigger HD!
Once they are down to that last ten per cent of free space, though, they are treading on glass. Free space fragmentation at least will already be a serious issue on their computers but if they try to defrag with a utility without first making substantially more space available then they may find it runs into problems or is so slow that they give up half way through and do the damage themselves, especially if they are using one of the less "forgiving" utilities!
In this case I think the best way to proceed is to clone the internal drive to a larger external with SuperDuper, replace the internal drive with a larger one and then clone back to it. No-one down to the last ten percent of their drive really has enough room to move. Defragging it will certainly speed it up, and may even save them from major problems briefly, but we all know that before too long they are going to be in the same situation again. Better to deal with the matter properly and replace the drive with something more akin to their real needs once this point is reached. Heck, big HDs are as cheap as chips these days! It is mad to struggle on with sluggish performance, instability, and the possible risk of losing the lot, in such a situation.

External Hard Drives & Online Storage for Photographers

I would like to purchase new external hard drives and am also looking into online storage websites. I am wondering if some external hard drives are better than others when it comes to storing photos. And would also like recommendation for online storage.
Are there certain photo saving "rituals" or systems that you would recommend for keeping your photos safe and backed up.
Lastly, please recommend your favorite portable external hard drives when you are mobile.
Thank you

I have two 4TB Drobo's that are my primary storage of my digital files. My Aperture libraries reside on my Alu iMac internal drive (more on this later). My 2008 Aperture library contains about 35,000 images, all referenced to image files stored on a 2nd Gen Drobo. I don't think it is the fastest solution out there, and surprisingly it seems slower than a USB 2.0 transfer. Having said that, when I am actively working in Aperture on a project, I rarely notice a delay. From this I have concluded that I am very slow or at least the speed of the 2nd Gen Drobo keeps up with me.
As a bit of warning on Drobo. In December, I was keeping my library on the Drobo and it was taking forever to open (5-20 minutes) and eventually the library became corrupted. I rebuilt it and a few days later it become corrupted again. This is the only time I have ever had problems with my libraries. After the second time, I repaired the library and moved it to my internal drive and it has been fine ever since. Also, I noticed that on occasion Aperture would tell me that an image was an unsupported format and NO program would open the RAW file. If I replaced the RAW file from a back up copy, then Aperture was fine and could open the file. I also noticed that there would be stretches of files (5-20) sequentially named, that became corrupted so no program could open them. ( I was operating the Drobo's with Firmware 1.2.2, I think. After considerable discussion with Drobo I upgraded the Firmware to 1.3 and they also replaced the offending case with a new one. After the upgrade to 1.3, I have not had any new events of corruption since upgrading to 1.3. I could readily copy the corrupted file to another drive without evidence that the file was sick.
But contained in this story is an interesting puzzle. Historically, I was managing backup of my image files by using SuperDuper copying from one WD 2 TB drive to another WD 2 TB drive. In this scenario, the corrupted files would have been copied and my image files effected would have been lost forever. I really don't know how the vault would work in this situation.
With this thought, I have changed my strategy for backup. I work on the project with the image files residing on the Drobo. Once done, I export the pictures usually to a JPEG format for the client. IF the initial RAW is corrupted, I am warned as to which files could not be exported. If everything goes fine, then I know my primary image files are ok. I then export the project to an another external drive (I all it xxxxxx ARCHIVE) where I keep a separate library and I then import the project into that ARCHIVE library; Once imported I relocate my masters out of the library into my finder based folder system.
I also generate a temporary project file as soon as I import into Aperture and store that temporary project file on my ARCHIVE drive.
Hope this provides some insight.
Regard, steven

External Hard Drive Fail After Waking from Sleep

Hi,
I've been having this issue for over a year (since upgrading to Lion, and now still persists after upgrading to Mountain Lion), and I haven't been able to find the exact answer I need after searching through the posts here, and on the internet.
I have a 2011 MBP, and after upgrading to Lion last year, I've noticed that my WD external hard drive for the Mac has issues to be recognized after the laptop wakes from sleep. The drive icons are still there on the desktop, and all the files are listed. However, I cannot open any of the files, and Time Machine backup automatically fails.I am able to eject the drives by dragging the icons into the trash can. However, nothing happens if I simply unplug the fire wire 800 cable and re-plug it into the computer after ejecting the drives. I need to reset the external drive by unplugging both the fire wire cable and the power supply, and replug everything.
Aside from being a hampering process after waking from sleep, this is also very stressful on the drive itself, so I would like to fix this. Does anyone know the issue behind this or have a solution? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for this, and apologies for delay in replying...in between seeing your post I backed up the ext hdd to another mac and used the disc utility to erase and repair and then re mounted the ext hdd. OK. I have then tested the ext hdd being recognised when waking from sleep mode a few times and everything appears to be fine. If this doesn't work (long term) I will follow the instructions as you have suggested....
I now have a new problem with my HP printer (Photosmart Plus) which is not being recognised by a new wireless router..Ok whilst the router is switch on and I have reconfigured the printer..but when the router is switched off overnight and then switched back on...I get a 'printer is not connected' message and have to go through the re configure routine all over. I am minded to think this is a router problem as the same issue is happening to my wifes Mac Book Pro (which is only a few weeks old)...any suggestions..

Western Digital External Hard drive keeps undocking when running time machine.

I have been using a 2TB Western Digital My Book external hard drive for about a year now to run time machine and backup my files. The past month I have noticed that my backups have been failing. I try and for a backup and about halfway through it gets "delayed" because of an error. Then I have a alert pop up on my desktop with the following message:
The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off.
The disk was not unplugged from the power supply or the usb port. I am stumped. Anyone know what is going on and how to fix it??

I would avoid WD, Seagate, LaCie, and Iomega external drives, and any drive with special features such as networking or built-in backup software.

What is the best External Hard Drive for video edition?

Hi guys, I'm looking for a good firewire external hard drive for video edition.
I have 2 HD already but the bigest is a Seagate and is a trouble cause this one have an auto sleep system that is impossible to put out and when I'm printing to tape this one fall to sleep and the video that I'm transfering get a delay horrible!!
I'm looking for a 1 tb or 2 tb external HD.
Can you recomend me something??
thanks a lot!

Gufa wrote:
Thanks Jouu, great prices but I need to know if those discs doesnt have the autosleep function!
Thanks
That was why I mentioned the 24/7 live Chat support, they (should) know the products they sell.
8^)
Joe

What type and how many gigabyte external hard drive do I get for my iMac?

What brand and what features and how many gigabytes do I need in an external hard drive for my new imac?

I am sure if I spent the time reading those pages, I would lose more time than I would save with a Firewire drive if I ever had to do a complete restore. If you ever have to do a complete restore, just run it overnight. Do like I do, save your money, maybe buy some Apple stock, and you will make more than enough to compensate yourself for the extra time it might take.
The only time you might need extra drive speed is for the operating system, or if you do a lot of heavy graphics and video work, or do a lot of work on a disk-based database. (If speed is an issue with a database, consider using memory-based software instead.) Backup is not on that list, unless having the computer up and running is so critical that you should be using a RAID backup system instead. For the vast majority of computer users, speed will not be an issue. After all, many people backup to Time Capsules over WiFi, and that is slower than USB2.
When it comes to backup, people should be speedy about getting a backup drive. If the extra cost of Firewire causes a delay doing that, it could easily cost more time and trouble than the extra speed will ever save them.
macjack wrote:
Bruce De Benedictis wrote:
USB2 ... It may be a touch slower if you should ever have to recover a volume
Please check your information...
http://www.lyberty.com/tech/terms/usb.html
http://www.firewire-1394.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm
These were my first 2 hits on Google, there are pages more you can read at your leisure.

Dictionary launch causes external hard drive wakeup

Occasionally, when I launch the Dictionary application, one of my external hard drives (FireWire 400) "wakes up" (it's not off or anything, but the spindle has to do its thing). Only after it has woken up the Dictionary window appears. This delay is somewhat annoying, since it can take about 10–15 seconds.
This problem is sometimes occurs when I'm in Safari and click a link. My assumption is that Dictionary uses the WebKit foundation, as does Safari, so I'm guessing that this might be a Mac OS X web page rendering engine problem.
Any idea why this would happen?

Me too. It's super annoying – ever since installing Snow Leopard.
I have a Seagate FreeAgentPro (FW4 Media) connected for Time Machine and extra storage purposes which is often asleep. Ever since the upgrade to Leopard the drive gets wakened every time I want to save anything within any app, causing a spinning beachball delay until the drive is up and running – even if, as is usually the case, I intend to save to the internal disc. Why can't they make it so that if you choose the external disc as a destination, only then do you have to wait for it to be wakened?
Now with Snow Leopard every time I choose Look up in Dictionary from within Safari, it does the same thing and waits until the external drive is up and awake again.
I assume it's either a Snow Leopard or Safari thing? If there's a fix for this I'd be grateful to know.
Edit: I just noticed it happens in Pages too, though not in TextEdit.
Message was edited by: CRhysB

External Hard Drive Delays?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for