External USB Drive 2.0 vs 1.1

I recently received some helpful advice on this forum concerning formatting an external USB 2.0 hard drive for the Mac. I have a couple related questions concerning USB 2.0 vs 1.1.
I'm using an iBook G3/900MHz/640 MB, originally purchased in 2003, with OS 9.2.2 & 10.2.4 in a dual boot configuration. I pretty much boot exclusively to OS 9. The iBook's 2 USB ports, I think, must be 1.1, and the Firewire port 400. (The Apple System Profiler, under Devices and Volumes, shows the number 1.5.9 for the USB ports, and 2.8.7 for the Firewire port. Is this an indication of the speed?)
There's no problems copying files to the external drive, but occasionally, when I've tried to open and/or edit those files, it's caused the iBook to freeze. Do you think this could be due to the drive being 2.0 and my iBook's USB ports being 1.1?
Something else I noticed, was that the Apple System Profiler occasionally indicated that one of the USB ports was connected to the Apple internal modem, as well as the external drive. I have no idea why, and it didn't appear all the time. I disabled two modem extensions (Internal USB Modem & Internal V.90 Modem), and it got rid of that situation, but the occasional crashes are still happening.
So do you think the USB speed mismatch could be responsible for the crashes when accessing files on the external hard drive?

Hi, motc -
...that a typical external hard drive can transfer data at a variety of different speeds...
Only if it is designed to do so. For example, a Firewire 400 drive can not transfer data at FW800 speeds; and a USB 1.1 drive can not transfer data at USB 2.0 speeds.
Some external drives have multiple interfaces - USB and Firewire, and perhaps more than one for each.
...and it's the enclosure's interface (USB, Firewire, etc.) that determines what that speed will be?
Not exactly. The capability of the Mac and the OS running the Mac also determine the data throughput speed.
For example, the built-in USB on your iBook G3 900MHz model is USB 1.1. Attaching a USB 2.0 drive will not change that - the best such a drive can do is USB 1.1 speeds, limited by the Mac itself. Fortunately most USB 2.0 devices are backward compatible with USB 1.1 - they will operate on a USB 1.1 connection, but only at USB 1.1 speeds.
Similarly your iBook's built-in firewire is FW400 - it can not operate that bus at FW800 speed.
For those models capable of using PCI cards (an iBook is not), a faster bus (USB, Firewire, or both) can be added that way - but whether such a drive will then be bootable depends on the Mac and the card.
There are also other limiters - the OS. For example, even if a USB 2.0 bus is added to a G4 using a PCI card, when the machine is booted to OS 9 it can not use USB 2.0 speeds, only USB 1.1 speeds - OS 9 does not have the necessary software components to drive USB 2.0.

Similar Messages

  • Performance Issues with 10.6.7 and External USB Drives

    I've had a few performance issues come up with the latest 10.6.7 that seem to be related to external USB drives. I have a 2TB USB drive tha I have my iMovie content on this drive and after 10.6.7 update, iMovie is almost unusable. Finder even seems slow when browsing files on this drive as well. It seems like any access to the drive is delayed in all applications. Before the update, the performance was acceptable, but now it almost unusable. Most of the files on this drive are large dv files.
    Anyone else experience this?

    Matt,
    If you want help, please start your own thread here:
    http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1339&start=0
    And if your previous thread you aren't getting sufficient help for your iPhone, post a new topic here:
    http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1139
    You'll get a wider audience, and won't confuse the original poster. Performance issues can be caused by numerous issues as outlined in my FAQ*
    http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html
    If every person who had a performance issue posted to this thread, we'd never find a solution for the initial poster. Let's isolate each case one by one. It is NOT necessarily the same issue, even if the symptoms are the same. There are numerous contributing factors at work with computers, and if we don't isolate them, we'll never get to the root cause.

  • How can i create a Trash for external USB Drives ?

    Hello,
    how can i create a Trash for external USB Drives or my TimeCapsule ?
    Thanks.

    You do not need to create trash cans for individual drives.  The trash can on the desktop holds deleted files from all mounted drives.
    TimeCapsule manages its own space.  If it fills up it will delete older backps to make space for newer ones.

  • How can I do backups on internal disc while sharing an external USB drive?

    Hi,
    On my Airport Utility there are two lines: "Time Capsule Disc", and below (indented) "Data".
    (When I plug an external USB drive I can see it in this window as well)
    Clicking (selecting) the first line, on the right hand side I can see the disc details (name, capacity and SMART Status (Verified)), and two buttons: Compress and Erase (I don't know if these are the words used on the english version mine is spanish).
    Clicking on the second line (Data) I can see the Name "Data", capacity, used and available sizes and number of users connected.
    First question:
    Why Time Machine can't see the "Data" volume if I untick the "Share files" checkbox?
    Second question:
    Moreover, I've got a USB External Drive attached to my Time Capsule, so I have to have the "Share Files" checkbox ON, this makes my USB disc (fat32) available to my Windows computers but ALSO the "Data" volume can be seen from Windows. If there is any attempt to assign a Windows drive letter to the "Data" volume, next time Time machine wants to do a backup I'm getting a "disc wrong or missing, check credentials (or something similar)".
    In summary, what I'm trying to do is Time Machine backups to the internal Time Capsule disc (making that disc unavailable/invisible to any other computer in my network) while sharing a USB external drive attached to Time Capsule.
    Advice, please!

       Yes you can go to > Music > iTunes folder and copy the whole iTunes folder and drag the folder to your external and then on the new Mac click and highlight the iTunes folder and then in iTunes click on the button at the top (add folder to library) and you should see all your songs transfer from the external to the Mac and all songs start filling up in your iTunes library on the Mac.
      This is the easiest method all songs and other media such as songs, movies, apps will be transferred over however you may not be able to keep ratings & last played counts using this method.
      To keep all metadata including ratings & play count use the Apple method exclusively for this if you have to have your metadata, play counts and ratings saved.
      I used scenario one above because it one of the simplest methods and I was just satisfied enough just to transfer all media over.

  • I would like to recover my bookmarks from my old hard drive that I now have as an external USB drive. The old OS was Vista; the new is Windows 7.

    I recently had a new hard drive installed on my laptop; this hard drive has the Windows 7 OS on it.
    At the same time, I had my old hard drive mounted in an SATB enclosure so that I could use it as an external USB drive. [I stupidly did not export my bookmarks before doing all of this]
    Everything seems to work fine [I can see all of the files], but I cannot find out where my bookmarks are stored on the old hard drive.
    Is it possible to find them and get them transferred over to the new hard drive??
    Thanks!!

    Bookmarks are stored in a file called places.sqlite inside the profile folder. You can copy that file from the old profile folder into your current profile folder. For details of how to find the profile folder see https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Profiles or http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
    You can recover more than just the bookmarks - https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Recovering+important+data+from+an+old+profile

  • My external USB drive is not recognized by Win XP

    Hi!
    I have an external USB drive that is HTF+ formatted. It is not recognized by Windows XP. If I start the windows disk manager it gives me the option to initialize the drive. Do I dare to do this? Will it not erase the information on the drive?
    Thanks for any help!
    / Anders

    Hi Anders and welcome to Discussions,
    I have an external USB drive that is HTF+ formatted. It is not recognized by Windows XP. If I start the windows disk manager it gives me the option to initialize the drive. Do I dare to do this? Will it not erase the information on the drive?
    Yes it will !!
    Although with the BootCamp 3.0 Drivers (from the OSX Snow Leopard DVD) and the 3.1 Driver update (downloadable) Apple has introduced read-access to HFS+ partitions from Windows this feature seems to have some serious problems for some people.
    Personally I see this feature as "experimental" at the moment.
    XP itself knows nothing and therefor can not use/see HFS+ partitions and GPT (GUID partition table) harddisks.
    You might wanna have a look (or buy) at MacDrive http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/ which right now is the better solution.
    Thanks for any help!
    / Anders
    Hope it helps
    Stefan

  • Mini doesn't always connect  bluetooth and external (USB) drives on boot

    I have had a new Intel mini for 4 months now (we also have a PPC G5, which we love). In the last few weeks the mini started to not connect my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, nor recognize some of my USB peripherals when booting up. When this happens, it also makes a repeated "startup sound - bong!" echo when the start button is pressed. I have two external USB drives, one 500GB Phantom and one 500GB WD MyBook. When the Apple logo appears at boot, I can see the activity lights flashing on the drives as the BIOS interrogates the USB connections, but after the Leopard start up desktop appears, the only drive shown is Macintosh HD, the mouse pointer is at the top left of the display and will not move, nor will the keyboard do anything. I have read every post on this subject and tried all of the resets suggested. Sometimes this works after a few attempts, sometimes it takes 6 or more tries - disconnecting all cables, and turning the computer on again and again. Occasionally the WD MyBook drive appears on the desktop, yet still the Bluetooth is unresponsive and the other drive absent. I am getting frustrated having to disconnect everything and trying to boot this thing up, sometimes for one hour or longer before I can use it properly (all of my work is on the external drives).
    There MUST be a firmware update for this by now, because I see that I am not the only one experiencing these problems, and this is obviously some problem with how the BIOS is communicating with the bus.

    Hi amyta pdx-
    I'd be careful jumping to conclusions or the troubleshooting process may get clouded. For one thing those WD drives are junk and most people using them eventually have problems.
    What happens with everything disconnected from the Mac except a mouse connected to a USB port on the Mac and the monitor connected to the video port only?
    Luck-
    -DP

  • Can a time machine usb drive backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme*

    can a time machine usb drive conected to my mac book backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme ?

    Hi Adam, if you think yoiur HD may be failing you could do a TM restore onto the new disk. I would rather see you do a clone either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner.Of your internal drive. That way you have a bootable backup in case it does fail.
    btw - what are the symptoms of your failing drive?
    -mj
    Message was edited by: macjack

  • Errors on external USB drive

    I'm trying to track down the cause of failed backups to a brand-new 300Gb Seagate drive in a external USB <-> SATA enclosure.
    I observe these errors in Retrospects verification phase.
    These errors could
    - be 10.4.6 not playing well with external USB drives - that the new drive is essentially DOA
    - that the enclosure is a dud.
    - reflect an inability on Retrospect's part (e.g. unable to work properly with USB drives on 10.4.6)
    I've asked on the EMC Retrospect forum for their take on this, buts that's a very slow forum...
    Any pointers are welcome. I strongly prefer not to have to buy commercial solutions; after all, the "fix" may be to ask the supplier to take his drive back and refund me and I wouldn't want to spend if that's the case. Command-line solutions are fine.
    The data can be correctly backed up to another external drive (via Firewire) so its not the source data. Its not the specific USB port: tried other ports, etc. At one point there were some errors reported by Disk Utility, but I've repaired these and it now claims all is well.
    Dual G5/2Ghz/4GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   ExternalUSB enclosure; 300Gb Seagate SATA drive

    I see my question is so popular, I'm left composing a soliloquy... :-/
    Anyway, an upgrade to OS X 10.4.7 (from 10.4.6) seems to have put this right, after a lot of different testing exercises and reading. At least for the first time in many attempts I've been able to run a sizeable backup using Retrospect without the verification pass yielding hundreds of errors.
    It would seem, at least for Retropsect users, that OS X 10.4.6 needs to be avoided if you intend backing up to an external USB drive--?
    Dual G5/2.0Ghz/4GB RAM    

  • Trouble accessing files on external USB drive after 10.6.8 update

    Upgraded to Mac 10.6.8 on my MacBook Pro (I'm not a techie, but the "About This Mac" thingy says 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 - I assume that means something to somebody). Since the upgrade, I've been having problems accessing data on an external HD connected via USB - there were no issues before the upgrade, but now it's impossible to even navigate to a particular file or subfolder half the time, as the process freezes 95% of the time (every so often I am able to get through, for no obvious reason) - usually I just get what looks like an empty folder and a little spinning thing in the bottom right-hand corner. Sometimes when I do get to a file - say it's a ZIP file - I'll try to unZIP it and the process will hang; if I try to drag it to the desktop and unZIP it there, I can't get it to copy to the desktop, I just get the "copying files" box and a bar that never shows any progress, it just hangs at zero bytes out of whatever it might be.
    Also having intermittent issues with another external USB drive, which is the one I use for Time Machine - about one in every five backup attempts is successful, the rest of the time I get a message saying the backup couldn't be performed.
    I have two external FireWire drives as well, and I'm having no trouble with either of those - so I'm assuming the problem is USB-related (and 10.6.8 related, since none of this was happening before the upgrade).
    So - I'm wondering if anybody else is having the same issues, and f there's a solution that a non-techie like me could handle that won't make blood come out of my ears.
    Cheers!

    Thanks baltwo - the PRAM tip was helpful. For some reason I still have trouble accessing a few files, I'm putting that down to them being somehow corrupted. Eric, thanks, but I tried using Disk Utility and the communication problems I was having with the drive meant that the repair couldn't be performed. I may try again now that that side of things seems to be running a little more smoothly. Anyway, thank you both!

  • HP dv6-6188ca windows 7 pro 64b amd chipset 8G locks up copying files to/from external usb drive

    When ever I try to copy a large (>2G) file to or from a external usb drive the computer starts the copy but gets stuck. It has to be powered off and the battery removed to get it to work again.

    Please repost your inquiry in the Microsoft Windows 7 Performance Forum. 
     Thank you!
    Carey Frisch
    Microsoft MVP
    Windows Expert - Consumer

  • Time Capsule external USB drive won't reconnect remotely over Back To My Mac

    I'm running a Mac Mini at work, connected via ethernet to an enterprise network (I have no idea what routers they are using, or how they are set up).
    At home, I have a MBP laptop and a Time Capsule (hardwired to cable modem) with an external USB drive attached.
    All 3 machines (Mac Mini, MBP, TC via Airport Utility) have Back To My Mac switched on.
    I can access the external USB drive on my home TC from my work Mac Mini....until the Mini falls asleep. When I wake it back up, the connection back to the TC fails. However....after restarting the Mini, the connection works again.
    My first thought was that the corporate network / firewall / etc was causing the problem - not leaving correct ports open, or someting to that effect. However, I realised that if that were the case, restarting the Mini shouldn't help, but it does.
    Does anyone have any idea how sleeping breaks being able to access a TC's external drive remotely over BTMM?
    The Mac Mini is a 2.3GHz Core i5 with 8GB RAM and plenty of HD space.
    The MBP is a 15" late 2013 retina, 2.6 GHz Core i7, 16 GB RAM, also plenty of HD space.
    The TC is a 2 TB 4th generation model.
    Thanks!
    J

    Sorry that did not work. This works well for me using Lacie drives, but I haven't tried Iomega.
    Have you checked Iomega's site to see if any software/firmware updates available?
    Also noticed during a quick search that a number of users are reporting mounting problems with Iomega. Not sure if this applies to you or not.
    http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?search=Go&q=iomegadrive+won%27tmount

  • Network Drives/External USB Drives?

    If I have a NAS box on the network or a couple of external USB drives connected to computers on my network, will Network Magic "see" them and allow me to share folders on them with the rest of the network?
    Thanks...

    Cartaphilus1946 wrote:
    Thanks for the prompt reply.  I was hoping that since the USB drive will be mapped to a drive letter that it could be shared.  But I guess not.  I may just invest in a NAS interface like the one from Iomega for my USB drives.
    Hi Cartaphilus1946,
    What type of Interface is being employed by the USB Drives?
    If SATA, you could move all the existing files and folders onto the computer, then buy either the D-Link DNS-321 or D-Link DNS-323 which has a built-in FTP Server. They use SATA Hard Drives.
    Just a thought.
    thecreator - Running Network Magic version -5.5..9195.0-Pure0 on Windows XP Home Edition SP 3
    Running Network Magic version -5.5.9195.0-Pure0 on Wireless Computer with McAfee Personal Firewall Build 11.5.131 Wireless Computer has D-Link DWA-552 connecting to D-Link DIR-655 A3 Router.

  • Single-user mode: How to mount and access an external USB drive?

    My MacBook Pro HD is acting up. Cannot boot normally or into "safe mode". Cannot reinstall OS without wiping out the HD. Need to recover some critical files but DiskUtil First Aid and Restore options cannot successfully complete. Problem traced down to "invalid node structure" which means I either have a hardware problem or my filesystem partition directory structure is corrupted. I need to recover some files that are not backed up (timin issue with my regular backup process).
    I can boot into single-user mode, mount the root file system (/sbin/mount -uw /) and can see/navigate the rot filesystem structure via good UNIX command line. Here's what I would like to do (in single-user mode):
    1. Mount an external USB drive (250 GB already formatted as Mac OS X Extended)
    2. Copy various files and/or directories from my HD to the external USB drive (UNIX cp command)
    I realize I could go spend $$ for the Disk Warrior or Data Rescue products (or something similar) that SHOULD help me recover my HD or files, but it seems silly to do this when I can see, touch and taste them from within single-user mode....
    Comments? Suggestions?
    TIA --
    Trent
    P.S. Once I've recovered my files, I'll try to reformat the HD and then reinstall the OS. And THEN go have Apple look at my machine (thank goodness for AppleCare coverage)!

    Resolution:
    1) Boot system in single-user mode (SUM) with external HD attached.
    2) Execute the following UNIX CLI commands once SUM boot process is completed:
    # fsck -fy
    # mount -uw /
    # mkdir /Volumes/target_directory
    # mount -t hfs -w /dev/diskXXX /Volumes/target_directory
    # cp -RXv /source_directory /Volumes/target_directory
    Where XXX is the device-level name for your external HD's data partition. In my case this was /dev/disk1s2. It may take some experimentation to identify this device name if your system has multiple HD's.
    3) Verify contents were successfully copied onto the /Volumes/target_directory.
    Comments and observations:
    - Do NOT use "/" as your source directory - cp will make a second (redundant) copy of /volumes/target_directory
    - I was able to successfully copy ALL files off my HD despite the fsck command's "invalid node structure" error message with this simple procedure. YMMV, depending on the state of your HD.
    - The repeated disk0s2: I/O error warnings displayed during the SUM boot process did not seem to have a negative effect on this procedure. I also received this same error warning intermittently as I navigated the mounted filesystem did not seem to be a problem, either. Again, YMMV.
    Commercial software:
    I downloaded ProSoft Engineering's Data Rescue 3 product (trial version) before spending $99 to attempt to recover my "bad" HD's data via mounting to a good system with FW target mode. It could not successfully complete its "QuickScan" process and immediately hung on block 0 of 390M during its "Deep Scan" process. The product did seem to function properly on an operational system. ProSoft's technical support was responsive and helpful but had no answer for my "Deep Scan" error.
    I did not attempt to use Alsoft's Disk Warrior 4 product. I could not find any trial software available and was reluctant to spend $100 based upon the mixed reviews and comments on this discussion forum as well as other reviews. Alsoft does claim to address the "invalid node structure" error in their marketing materials. Hindsight being 20/20 - I saved $100 by using this simple procedure.
    Final note:
    Neither Leopard nor Snow Leopard's installation DVD could recognize the bad internal HD when trying to do a reinstall. While DiskUtil was able to "see" the bad internal drive it immediately failed when I tried to do an "erase and format". Took the system to my local Apple store and the Genius ran a tool called "SMART Utility" from Volitans Software (www.volitans-software.com). SMART utility confirmed that my HD was bad so it was replaced. AppleCare pays for itself (once again!).

  • Is it possible to format an external USB drive with XFS or EXT3 ?

    Greetings all.
    I am running a 2,8Ghz 8x core with 6Gb ram. I have a NAS, (Buffalo Pro Duo Linkstation) which has a built in linux which saves data using XFS (I think). It has a built in backup routine, but the drive it backs up to MUST be in XFS or EXT3 (Fat 32 works but it drops all files over 2GB ;( ... ) So - here's my question:
    How can I format the external USB drive (A seagate freeagent) in XFS or EXT3 so that it can run on my Buffalo? My preference is to use a GUI mac program (does one exist?) or to use a command line UNIX command (FSK? - but then, how????). I could also use (GASP!) a windows utility on parallels, or even install a linux distro via parallels. But it should be easy I hope...
    Looking forward to any ideas/thoughts, tips, etc.
    thanks and best to all from Berlin,
    Jason

    Download a "Live CD" (one you can boot of into running copy of Linux without having to install anything; for example, [OpenSUSE Live CD|http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.0/iso/cd/openSUSE-11.0-GNOME-Li veCD-x86_64.iso]).
    Use OS X' Disk Utility to burn it to a CD.
    Insert the CD you just burned (if it ejected afterwards), and then restart your Mac.
    Hold down the 'C' key on the keyboard as the Mac boots, and it should switch to booting off the CD. Once the CD starts loading, you can let go. It will take a couple of minutes, but it will eventually boot into Linux.
    Attach your USB drive.
    Run gparted (you need to search the menus for it, it's under system administration, I think -- or you can open up a terminal window and simply type 'gparted').
    Find your disk (/dev/sdb or /dev/sda) and partition and format it using the filesystem you want.
    When done, restart the computer. You'll boot back into Mac OS X and have an EXT2/EXT3/XFS formatted external drive (that OS X won't recognize, by the way).

  • When I try to format an external usb drive  the progress bar only goes half way then freezes up can anybody help please

    When I try to format an external usb drive  the progress bar gets to half way then freezes , or stops and  what ever time I allow it never gets any futher on , I have to go to the task bar and click quit  to get on  and the usb drive is not formatted  is there a fault with my disk utility program  I have updated the system
    to lion 10.7.2
    Can anybody advise please

    Are these new external drives? How are the currently formatted? Have you tried doing this:
    Drive Preparation
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
    Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Maybe you are looking for