Is external Firewire Drive faster than Hard Drive?

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone can help me. Here is what I have Rev. A. 17 inch PB with original 60GB internal hard drive (4200 or 5400?) and a LaCie Firewire 400 External 7200 RPM hard drive.
My question is this. If you were going to burn a disk image to a DVD-R, which is the fastest method, Directly from the internal hard drive, or from the 7200 rpm Firewire 400 hard drive? I am not sure which way is best.
Any info would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Joe

Howdy Joseph. So if your internal drive is the stock one it is 4200. As far as the burn speed issue, the Firewire drive at 7200 will write the information a bit faster (not a whole lot) but you are still at the mercy of the DVD drive's write speed.
Hope that helps, Kal

Similar Messages

How to create External Hard Drive from Internal Hard Drive?

For my Mac, I want to get a 250GB external Firewire Hard Drive. I know I can purchase one as is. However, it seems that money can be saved by purchasing an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure. Is this correct?
If so, would the internal hard drive be an IDE?
Is there an enclosure that will make this IDE drive a Firewire/USB external drive?
Should the enclosure have a fan, on/off button?
Anything else to consider.
Thanks,
Herschel

Hi Hershel.
1) If you want to use the drive with both your PC and your Mac then you have two options. Either you format the drive in FAT32 (standard windows format) or you get hold of one of the utilities which allows you to read Mac HFS+ formatted disks on a PC (IMHO the better way to go). One disadvantage of using Fat 32 formatting for the drive is that you then won't actually be able to use it as an emergency "startup disk" for the Mac . The other problem is that Fat 32 can be problematic with large disks and files sometimes.
2) Your iMac has both USB2 ports and firewire 400 ports. There is no advantage really in getting an enclosure with Firewire 800 , because your iMac is limited to Firewire 400 anyway. The drive you buy to insert in the enclosure won't have any effect on this.
3) The reasons for getting a firewire capable enclosure for use with your Mac are that it is actually faster than USB2 (despite the higher rated speed of USB2) and because you can start up your Mac from an external FW drive, but not from an external USB2 drive. If you are formatting in Fat32 this won't be an issue because you won't be able to boot from it anyway.
4) The business about "parallel" and "serial" drives relates to the type of bridge in the enclosure that you buy, not to whether you want to connect it to a PC or a mac. Some enclosures are designed to work with "SATA" drives - ie Serial. Some are designed to work with "regular" IDE / ATA drives (ie parallel).
Just to make this clearer , think about this as involving two links in a chain. THe first link is from the drive to the enclosure. The enclosure needs to have the right sort of INTERNAL connection for the drive you buy - either SATA or regular ATA - regular ATA enclosures are more common than SATA one but large drives are now easier to find with SATA interfaces than IDE ATA. A few enclosures can accept either type of drive,but they tend to cost more.
The second link is the EXTERNAL one from the enclosure to your computer. In your situation it sounds as if you ideally need one which has both Firewire 400 and USB2 connections. (THere are also some cases which provide am external SATA connection for connection to the computer, but you wouldn't be able to use this with your iMac as it has no external SATA port).
Try a Google for the IceCube Pleiades and you should be able to come up with prices in a place somewhere near you. At present I'm not sure which country you are in.
Cheers
Rod

My MacBook Pro is not recognizing my external hard drive. The hard drive is listed in disk utilities but an icon does not pop up and I cannot access the data. Is there any way to resolve this?

My MacBook Pro is not recognizing my external hard drive. The hard drive is listed in disk utilities but an icon does not pop up and I cannot access the data. Is there any way to resolve this?

WE know Disk Warrior is more reliable, hence more useful, and should be in any disk mechanics toolchest.
For the record, I don't know anything of the kind. I have yet to see evidence that Disk Warrior is useful at all.
What I do know is that you seem to take every opportunity you get to promote it in these forums. Do you work for Alsoft?
Let me be a little more explicit. My opinion is that Disk Warrior is a waste of money if one has backups. If a journaled HFS directory is so badly corrupted that it can't be repaired by Disk Utility, then the volume should be reformatted and restored from backup, which has the same effect as running DW, but is probably faster and doesn't cost $99.

Greeting, I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the in

Greeting,
I want to reformat my external hard drive using Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted ) but before formatting it, I want to make sure that if I loose the hard drive or the hard drive get stolen, no one will be able to retrieve or recover the information on it so could you tell me what kind of encryption will be used or is there any way to recover the information?
Thanks!

I think FileVault is used to encryp internal hard drive but I wanna encrypt an external hard drive with Mac OS Extended Journaled Encrypted which is completely different!

Got a new external hard drive. Transferred all files from old hard drive to new hard drive. Connected hard drive to macbook. How do I get all my files to be recognized by iTunes and my already made playlists??

Got a new external hard drive. Transferred all files from old hard drive to new hard drive. Connected hard drive to macbook. How do I get all my files to be recognized by iTunes and my already made playlists??

Trying to download photos from IPHONE, IPAD to IPHOTO in IMAC after installing new hard drive.
How did you import the photos to iPad and iPhone?
If the photos have been synced to the iPhone and iPad using iTunes, you cannot sync them back.
See this document: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4236
You can't reimport pictures synced from your computer to your device back to your computer. You can only import pictures in the Camera Roll or Saved Photos from your device to your computer. If you need to retrieve synced photos from your device:
If your photos are not in the Camera Roll on your devices, save them to the Camera Roll, share them to the Photo Stream, mail the photos, or, if you have iPhoto on the devices, use iTunes Photo Sharing.
http://help.apple.com/iphoto/iphone/2.0/?handbuch#blnkee26bc1
Save photos to your computer using iTunes
Connect your iOS device to your computer.
Tap a photo, album, event, web journal, or slideshow and tap Share> iTunes.
Tap Selected, or change the photos you want to save (if you are saving a slideshow skip to step 4):
Select different photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap one or more photos, and tap Next.
Select a range of photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap Range, tap the first and last photos in the range, and tap Next.
Select all the photos in an album or event: Tap All.
In iTunes, click the button for your device and click Apps at the top of the window.
Below File Sharing, select iPhoto (in Apps).
Select the Shared Photos folder under iPhoto Documents.
Click Save To and select the location on your computer where you want to save the items.
To view your photos, go to the Finder and look in the location you selected above.

Changed hard drive... How do I transfer from old hard drive to new hard drive

hanged hard drive... How do I transfer from old hard drive to new hard drive.
I have installed the new hardrive on my macbook and reinstalled the software... how do I transfer the information form the old drive to
the new one.
?can I put the old drive in another macbook and connect via firewire???
Thanks

Put the old hardrive in an external hardrive case....like this...
eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go
.....this is just an example their are less expensive models....

How do I assign a file to a drive other than the drive that contains my program software?

I've just installed a video editing program on my new Mac Pro Xeon 64 bit workstation. I want to ensure that all my media files reside on a drive other than the drive that contains programs. I had no problem doing this on my old Dell. How do I do this on my Mac Pro? -- Gary

Application Preferences.
Next time, 'what' program would also help.
Most people do setup with a dedicated boot drive with OS and apps, .then use other drives or array(s) for media, scratch as needed, including external hardware RAID.

How to install apple mobile device support in other drives other than C drive, how to install apple mobile device support in other drives other than C drive

how to install apple mobile device support in other drives other than C drive, how to install apple mobile device support in other drives other than C drive
as my C drive is full ...

Move some of the "crap" off the C drive. Programs only install to the default OS drive.
Or upgrade the computer to a larger hard drive.

Hi.have a g5 mac,dual core 2.3 unit.i bought it with no hard drive.have got hard drive,formatted for mac.i am trying to load osx.i get a grey screen with a small box in the centre with 2 character faces,and then grey apple with loading icon spinning.help?

hi.have a g5 mac,dual core 2.3 unit.i bought it with no hard drive.have got hard drive,formatted for mac.i am trying to load osx.i get a grey screen with a small box in the centre with 2 character faces,and then grey apple with loading icon spinning.nothing is loading tho.

I see 10.6.3 in your profile---is tthat what you are trying to load? If so, it won't work. No PowerPC Mac like your G5 can run a Mac OS version higher than 10.5.8

I have a macbook pro. I had iphoto on it prior to my hard drive crashing. Hard drive was replaced but iphoto is no longer on. How do I get it back without paying for it?

I have a macbook pro. I had iphoto on it prior to my hard drive crashing. Hard drive was replaced but iphoto is no longer on. How do I get it back without paying for it?

Have you tried
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4928

I had all my iTunes music backed up onto a hard drive; but the hard drive was stolen along with all the files I backed up onto it. However, the songs I had in iTunes still show up (I just can't play them.) Would it let me get them back?

I had all my iTunes music backed up onto a hard drive; but the hard drive was stolen along with all the files I backed up onto it. However, the songs I had in iTunes still show up (I just can't play them.) If I were to use iCloud, would it still take those songs and let me listen to them (and maybe re-download them?) Or am I out of luck?

Open iTunes, go to the iTunes Store, and then go to Purchased on the right hand side under Music Quick Links.
You can re-download all the songs, apps, or books you have previously purchased.
I'm not sure if this is a requirement, but just in case, make sure you download the latest version of iTunes (v10.3) too.

Copy MBP Hard Drive to new Hard Drive while FileVault enabled?

Is it possible to copy MBP Hard Drive to new Hard Drive while FileVault is enabled? Also, what's the best way to image from a 700GB drive to a 300GB SSD? I'm currently using 250GB.

Hi, have you tried the Boot Camp forum ?
personally I think it should work...L

SATA Hard Drive to IDE Hard Drive adapter ????

Good afternnon.
Has anybody had experience with this eBay contraption?
SATA to IDE Adapter (“Convert SATA Hard Drive to IDE Hard Drive”)
Connect a SATA hard drive to you IDE motherboard with this SATA to IDE Adapter! Turn your SATA hard drive into IDE interface hard drive. It features the JMicro JM20330 chipset and supports 3.5-inch SATA hard drives. It's compliant with SATA specification and supports up to 2TB hard drives!
When IDE hard drive price is going higher and shortage, but plenty of SATA Hard Drive available in low price! You can try to use this! It is tested to support up to 2TB SATA hard drive, while largest manufactured IDE hard drive capacity is 750GB. Now you can have 1TB IDE hard drive or even 2TB IDE hard drive!
Support most hard drives, tested 2TB capacity SATA hard drive, under DOS, Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and more...NO SOFTWARE DRIVER REQUIRE, BIOS Detected!"
Thanks for your time.

Not that exact one, but others much like that have worked fine.
And here it looks like the identical one & specifies OSX also...
http://www.cooldrives.com/satoidecofor.html

Are Firewire backup drives faster than USB backup drives?

I have a USB 2.x 80GB drive that I regularly backup my ibook with Retrospect (been using it for many years and did not dare touch any shareware backup apps in my move to OSX). Yes it was much cheaper than a Firewire version and why I bought it instead. It cant boot, but when I restore I boot my Retrospect boot CD (much, much slower than the OS 8.1 version. But that the nature of OSX). OSX is a wonderful OS and MUCH SUPERIOR to OS9, but there are drawbacks no doubt. For one is that it takes forever to boot from a CD/DVD, and I dont have access to the entire finder like I did with my Performa.
Just like with my old Performa when I backup my computer I need to boot with extensions off to avoid crashes. So I do so and backup the drive. Before I was using a ORB drive, but such a drive would not work natively in OSX so this backup drive suites me fine for know.
So just out of curiousity how much faster would a FireWire backup drive be?
This is the speed I get with this USB 2.x drive.
http://johnw.freeshell.org/graphics/ibookg4.jpg
Thanks,
John

I've always been sold on FW400's 400Mbp transfer rate, but when I tested my external drives attached to my eMac (where each device was the only thing on that bus, adn the computer wasn't busy)
USB1 <0.5MB/s
FW 400 drives just over 2MB/s (2 drives on twodifferent brands of FW enclosures tested)
ATA 9->15MB/s (I attached one of the drives from a FW enclosure directly on a spare ATA bus). This speed was the only one that seemed to vary according to the test run- ie the access was limited by the drive response.
Unfortunately I haven't got serialATA or USB2 buses on the eMac to do further tests, but the take home message is that the quoted speeds must be taken with a pinch of salt.
One other thing is that the new MacBook seems to have lost FW800!

Finder messed up my external drive and my hard drive

Unreal. I have a brand new Western Digital MyBook 750GB external drive. Time machine has been backing up to it every hour since yesterday as it should. A few hours ago, when looking through files, Finder froze and I had to Force Quit/ Relaunch it. When I did that, it actually just locked my entire Mac and I had to hold down the power button to turn it off.
After powering up again, my external hard drive cannot be read by my Mac and wants me to erase it and start over. Unreal.
Now I have to start from scratch and erase my entire external drive due to Finder. I never had to relaunch Finder with Tiger. Thanks Leopard.

Hey again,
Hopefully you figured out the problem last night, but just in case you haven't, here's what worked for me:
1) Your probably already know this, but make SURE you don't use Disk Utility to initialize, erase, or reformat the disk - if you do, that will make things extremely hard if not impossible to recover data from.
2) I used a program called "DiskWarrior". It's available at:
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Although their website is somewhat unclear if the current release is Leopard-safe, I didn't have much of a choice and did it anyways. It actually loaded up very quick on my Mac Pro and scanned that external 500GB disk very quickly - much faster than I remembered, not sure if that is good or bad...but it worked. I then just hit the "Rebuild" button to rebuild the damaged directory - which I don't know if it is your problem or not, but I'm guessing so judging from your story.
It found the errors and rebuilt the directory very quickly as well, just a couple minutes max. Then, it mounted perfectly!
To my relief, it seems to be working fine so far. Apple's Disk Utility can now verify it again, and it doesn't find any errors, so I'm hoping all is well again.
3) If/when you are successful (cross fingers)...
After it mounts, go back into the normal Disk Utility app, choose your drive, and use the toolbar button to "Enable Journaling", if it isn't on already. That (I think) should help avoid these problems at least a little bit for the future.
I'm not sure which program you tried, but there are a few of them out there that do similar things. I (think, but am not sure) that Tech Tool Pro may also be able to rebuild directories (http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83). There are others as well, let me know if you are still stuck. Good luck with it - please file a bug report with Apple as well so the know what's going on and don't think this is an isolated incident.

Is external Firewire Drive faster than Hard Drive?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for