Which HDD connection is faster -- Internal ATA or External Firewire?

I want to set up a HDD as a scratch drive for Photoshop. Which connection would be faster -- hooking it up to my internal ATA 100 cable or an external firewire enclosure? I do not have a drive presently hooked up to my ATA 100 cable since I'm running my boot drive off a SATA controller card, so there would NOT be two drives on the ATA 100, just the scratch drive. Thanks.

The speed ratings of drives above ATA-66 is mostly specsmanship.
A 10,000 RPM drive can only source data off the platters at about 50 MBytes/sec. So an ATA-133 drive has a tremendous pipe, but very seldom can fill that pipe with continuous data. The processor can write to the drive cache that fast, but at some point the cache will fill up and you will still have to wait for the discs to spin around so that the data can be written into the right block.
The data density per square inch on a 7200 RPM drive is about the same as the 10,000 RPM drives, but you have to wait for it to move under the read/write head, and the platters are spinning slower, so the transfer rates are lower.
If transfer rates were the most important factor, we would all be using Fiber Channel SCSI drives with transfer rates in the GigaBytes/second. Oh, and one meter cables cost over US$30 EACH.

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Hi all
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Jeff
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Hi
I did name the new external completely different from the internal.
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I am thinking of putting a fifth HDD in the optical bay of my mac pro. It looks a little bit fiddly to install (brackets, routing cables etc). I also have a Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA card. Is aan external HDD connected vis eSATA as fast as an internal drive?
Also, if I have two external drives set up as RAID 0 and use these as a scratch disk for photoshop will they be faster than a single internal HDD?

I also have a Sonnet Tempo E4P SATA card. Is aan external HDD connected via eSATA as fast as an internal drive?
Yes - an external HD configured with the E4P is just as fast as an internally mounted hard disk. The advantage provided by the eSATA host adapter is that the HD attached to it is now hot swappable. The internal hard disk is not.
Hot swap is great for backup sets and adding storage as needed.

IMAC 2010 which HDD can I use to replace the malfunctioned Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB?

iMAC 2010 which HDD can I use to replace the malfunctioned Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB?

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I did find some info that may be of some use:
WD: Where to connect an external temperature sensor to a Serial ATA or EIDE hard drive.iFixit: Replace the hard drive, how do I connect the hard drive thermal sensor?
Apple Technician Guide: iMac 2010 27" (mid-2010)
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New HDD Will Not Boot Internally

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Thinking that some boot information hadn't been copied, I attached my old drive externally so that whatever information wasn't copied was at least accessible, but the new drive still wouldn't boot.
I took the new drive out and connected it externally via USB again, but this time with no drive internally. I selected the new drive in Startup Manager, and I was able to boot from it.
Unsure of what's going on, I wiped the new drive and put it back in the MBP. Booted into Recovery Mode and selected Restore from Time Machine backup. I went through the selection of where my backup was and which one to use, but my new 1TB drive wasn't available to restore to.
I then tried the option to Reinstall Mac OS X, however it wouldn't let me do this either.
I went to Disk Utility in Recovery Mode, with the new drive still internal, to see if the disk needed repairing. I noticed then that it didn't appear to have the same name I'd given the partition when I'd formatted it, and I was also unable to reformat it, erase it, or actually do anything to it at all.
For whatever reason, this hard drive will NOT work when installed internally. I've contacted Seagate and they basically told me to shove off for opening the unit and voiding the warranty, no one online seems to have any ideas as to why this isn't working!
If anyone has some great ideas for a solution they'd be more than welcome!

It worked! Drive and Recovery Partition were cloned without problem and I can now boot to the internal drive as normal.
Thanks for the help Grant!
The fix/method for anyone wanting to do this in future:
Install new HDD into Mac, connect old drive in an enclosure.
Boot to old drive recovery partition
Run Disk Utility from the recovery partition and 'restore' the image of your old drive (which is connected via USB) to the new drive.
Wait a LONG time (5 hours for a 750GB HDD) and it'll clone your entire HDD including the recovery partition.
Whilst still in recovery Disk Utility, change startup disk to the new HDD (the one installed in your Mac)
Disconnect USB drive and boot to the newly cloned intertnal drive.
Celebrate - up to you how to approach this one, I just did a little dance.

Which hdds are compatible with hp pavilion dv6700t cto entertainment notebook pc (out of warranty)

I recently purchased a Seagate momentus as replacement http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591 thinking it would be compatible but when i tried to replace
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if not which hdds are compatible?
Thank you in advance!

Hi,
If you have the original HDD, check that there is not a black plastic adapter that you can pull off the old drive and fit to the new one.
Regards,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
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Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

My 30-pin dock is connected to my lightning to 30-pin connector which is connected to my iPod touch 5g. But my iPod will only charge, and will not play music through my dock.

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Have you tried resetting both the iPod and dock? To reset the iPod, press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons together long enough for the Apple logo to appear.
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Cheers
Waddo

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Can't write to External HDD connected to AEBS

+This is a repost from the SL Discussion...hopefully someone here can help...+
I am logged in under my account, which is the Administrator Account. I am unable to write to Seagate 1 TB external HDD connected to AEBS base station.
Under "Get Info"->Sharing and Permissions it reads "You have custom Access" and then shows just one account, "everyone" and this is a "Read Only" account. The format of the External Drive is shown as "Appleshare" (actual drive is formatted as NTFS so my Dell PC can read/write, which is functioning perfectly).
I tried to change the "everyone" account to Read and Write but Mac 10.6.3 won't let me because "I don't have the necessary permissions".
So then I tried to add another account (clicking the "+" sign) but it again rejects me because the account "isn't a valid name" although I am using my account name.
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Okay, it is formatted as FAT32.
I checked under Airport Utility and there are (2) accounts that have permitted access, Dad (Read/Write) and Mom (Read Only). The drive is not corrupted as I can read/write from the Dell PC without any issue and I can "Read" from my iMac.
When I right click on the drive, "Get Info" and then check "Sharing/Permissions", there is only one account shown "everyone" (all small letters) with "Read" access. This account does not show up under "Airport Utility" so it is an account that Finder assigned.
My other two accounts, that are correctly shown under Airport Utility, are not shown in Finder. It seems like this is a Finder Problem and Finder (under Snow Leopard) won't let me access the drive.
So how can I change the Permissions in Finder? Even if Finder lets me add another account that can read/write, I'll be happy. But it won't let me add any accounts, it simply says "Invalid Account Name".
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Storing my catalog on separate fast internal drive...?

I'm curious as to whether certain performance issues with Lightroom 4 are related to my setup...I am on Windows 7, 12GB RAM, 2 750GB 7200rpm hard drives (internal) and several external drives. The way I have it set up is:
C: - Where Lightroom is installed (duh)
D: (separate internal drive) is where my catalogs are stored
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I feel like Lightroom doesn't like the fact that my catalogs are on a separate drive from the program itself (?), despite being a SATA connected fast internal drive. Does anyone else have this setup? Will it affect performance?
Thanks
p.s. My D: drive is also setup as the primary scratch disk for Photoshop. Could this negatively affect performance?

it shouldn't negatively affect the performance the way that you have described:
reference these links-
http://thelightroomlab.com/2011/03/where-should-i-keep-my-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-catalo g/
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/03/five_ways_to_speed_up_lightroo.html
http://kelbytv.com/lightroomkillertips/2012/01/19/using-external-drives/
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-janelle

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Hi,
since last days I'm reading and reading online too so decide first between 15.4" and 17" Macbook Pro 2011. Currently I use a 2.5 years old Dell Studio 17"
I'm currently always changing my decision between both, SD card which I'd need for the camera pictures, but then 3 USB slots on 17", cheaper 15.4" ...
Any suggestions from your side? Want to buy the not glossy one.
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Thanks

Yes, it is using a USB chip that the TC cannot talk to without a hub. This is due to lack of drivers I think.
I posted a thread to which I have no answers.. but if you would like to fill in the details I think it will explain what is happening.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5912861?tstart=0

TS4209 When i wake up my iMac from sleep my wifi is disconnected. It also disconnects my iPad, my wives iPad, my iPhone & Sky On Demand which is connected via wifi. To reconnect all devices i have to switch off & then on again wifi on the iMac. Can anyon

When i wake up my iMac from sleep my wifi is disconnected. It also disconnects my iPad, my wives iPad, my iPhone & Sky On Demand which is connected via wifi. To reconnect all devices i have to switch off & then on again wifi on the iMac. Can anyone help?

Had the same issue and finally solved it. After the upgrade to Mavericks our 2 new Macbook Airs stopped connecting automatically to Wifi while the older machines the kids had still worked fine.
Bought a new airport extreme and problem solved. Our Airport Extreme was about 5 years old and was probably not compatible with the new OSX.
BTW this was after trying everything people suggested on this forum and a 4 hour marathon tech support call with Apple where we reinstalled the OSX.
***** to need to spend $200 but glad the problem got solved.
New extreme is also mega fast so its all good.

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I have a G4, OS 10.4.2, and iDVD 5. Is there any way I can configure iDVD to access my lower faster internal optical drive to burn my DVD's? If this is not available in iDVD 5, is it available in iDVD6?

Is there any way I can configure iDVD to access my lower faster internal optical drive to burn my DVD's?
So, do you have the same computer as mine?
You could create a disk image and then select drives with Toast or Disk Utility. See below.
iDVD 6 allows me to switch drives in Project Info...
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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=164927
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Access permissions on HDD connected to Airport

I have a new Airport Extreme wirelessly connected to my network. I have two HDD connected to the Airport, one for Time Machine, the other for my iTunes library. No problem with the HDD used for Time Machine, but on the other HDD the access permissions keep resetting to 'Everyone' being given no access. When I go in and change the permissions, close the information box and open it up again it has reverted back to no access. If I reboot the laptop it will normally fix this, be fine for a bit and then happen again.
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Unfortunately, Apple did not leave much room for setting user permissions for AirPort Disks. As you know, you can choose from one of three methods, but regardless of which method you choose, you cannot set permissions individually for folders/files on a drive, nor set them differently on either a different partition on the same drive or across multiple drives attached to a USB hub.
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Which HDD connection is faster -- Internal ATA or External Firewire?

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