Hard Drive FireWire or USB2

Hi !
I´m about to buy an external HD ( LaCie 80/160 GB). I would like to install a bootable partition and a backup one.
Can someone point me out the Pros and Cons of Firewire vs USB2 other than speed ?
I'm using windows with bootcamp is a Fire compatible with windows on th Mini ?
Thanks!

Hello,
The main difference is speed. And it is a significant difference. USB 2.0 is significantly slower than FireWire (I know I have both, and the drives are comparable otherwise).
Otherwise, there really is no point of comparison. The USB and FireWire protocols are different. But, you can sum that up as speed and efficiency.
USB has been said to require more system resources from the host computer (thus theoretically slowing down the computer as you add more USB devices). But, it's unknown to me exactly how much that penalty really is. I haven't observed USB to slow my computer noticeably. But, I can tell you that I have personally observed a 30 to 50% performance speed hit when I transfer data to my USB 2.0 drive compared to the faster performance of my FireWire 400 drive.
Besides speed and protocol, the main difference is the connector.
USB drives are not bootable from a PowerPC Mac. But, that isn't an issue since you have an Intel Mac.
Both USB and FireWire drives are compatible with Windows and Mac OS. So, that is not a problem.
Understand that Windows cannot read or write to / from Mac OS formatted partitions.
And, Mac OS X cannot write to NTFS (Windows) partitions. And, in many cases it has trouble reading them as well.
Currently, the only partition format that is universally compatible with both Mac OS X and Windows is FAT32.
But, you would only want to use FAT32 for a data partition.
FAT32 partitions cannot hold a backup copy of your Mac OS X installation, and it would not be bootable on a Mac.
FAT32 partitions also cannot hold many of the PKG files that are common in on Macs (under OS X).
So, you will want to only use a FAT32 partition to hold data that is necessary to exchange between Windows and the Mac.
Now, there is a way to create both a Mac OS X and a FAT32 partition on the same drive (you can find my method for doing it in my previous messages by searching). But, I won't delve into that because it would not be bootable on your system (and that is one of the criteria that you set).
So, your best option is to format the drive as a Mac OS X drive. Create both partitions as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) and then use a program on the Windows XP installation that will enable it to mount and read / write Mac OS X drives.
One such utility is MacDrive:
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/
If you install MacDrive in Windows XP, then you'll be able to read and write to / from the Mac OS X partitions on your hard drive.
And, using this method, you would be able to boot from the external drive since it would still be formatted as a Mac OS volume.
So, for the criteria you provided, this would seem to be the best option.
Understand that no option you choose will permit booting from Windows on an external hard drive. So, that is why I limited discussion of booting to the Mac OS X environment. Using the Mac, you will only be able to boot from an external drive if you are booting up into Mac OS X. Windows can only be booted from the internal hard drive.
Also, be sure to change the partition / volume scheme of your external hard drive prior to partitioning it. You need to be sure to set it to the GUID scheme.
By default, the Intel Macs use Apple Partition Map for the external drives and GUID for the Internal drives. But, you will need to configure your external drive as a GUID drive if you want to be able to boot from it.
You can read more about this here:
Disk Partitions
And, you can read about how to change these schemes here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303220
I hope this helps.
Let us know if you have other questions.
P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on any of the posts / replies above if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.

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• Inside the AMS enclosure, the drive is a standard ATA/IDE drive. That you can use the drive with a USB connection is proof the drive itself is working.
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Strictly my opinion, and more than happy to be educated with facts and convinced otherwise... but, there are no dangers.
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