[pvonk]

I'm a recent switcher, so I'm still learning the ropes. I've been looking at firewire hard drives (160GB and up) at the usual web sites. The descriptions of the units never indicate whether these are 400 or 800 port units. I've got one Maxtor 80 GB drive and it's a 400. Are all HDs 400? If so, what's out there that uses firewire 800?

Thanks.

[Ω]

Easiest way is to look at the tranfer speeds. That should tell if you have 400 or 800.

Lacie is a favourite. If you look on their site I think they are all FW400/800 USB1.1/2 compliant. Should give you a abse to start from.

[Dr.Michael]

Originally posted by pvonk:
I'm a recent switcher, so I'm still learning the ropes. I've been looking at firewire hard drives (160GB and up) at the usual web sites. The descriptions of the units never indicate whether these are 400 or 800 port units. I've got one Maxtor 80 GB drive and it's a 400. Are all HDs 400? If so, what's out there that uses firewire 800?

Thanks.

FW 400 means the interface of the external drive can transmit 400 Mbit/sec = 50 MByte/sec. 800 is 800Mbit/sec = 100 MByte/sec.
This does NOT mean the internal drive of the box can provide the same speed.
A good transfer rate of a 7200 RPM/3.5 inch drive is 50 MByte/sec. So it is useless to buy a FW 800 case with a 7200 RPM drive that can only transfer 50 MByte/sec. A FW 800 case should contain a very fast drive (I don't know if there is any drive to buy that can read/write 100 MByte/sec - I doubt it).

I see that you use a Powerbook. It has an internal drive that can read/write maybe 30 MByte/sec because 2.5 inch drive are slow (please check your specs). So if you want to transfer data from your internal hd to the external drive, your internal drive is the speed limit. There is no point to spend the money for FW 800.
If you want to boot from the external drive, its another story. Then things will speed up significantly.

Does this help?

Michael

[DaedalusDX]

Originally posted by Dr.Michael:


I see that you use a Powerbook. It has an internal drive that can read/write maybe 30 MByte/sec because 2.5 inch drive are slow (please check your specs). So if you want to transfer data from your internal hd to the external drive, your internal drive is the speed limit. There is no point to spend the money for FW 800.
If you want to boot from the external drive, its another story. Then things will speed up significantly.

Does this help?

Michael

Perhaps he has the 5400 RPM drive option in the Powerbook or perhaps he is one of the cool guys who go all out and replace the drive with one of the new Hitachi 7200 RPM travelstar drives...

Also, if he is capturing video to the hard drive or using it as a work drive for his FCP projects, then FW800 makes a lot of sense.

My father has a good firewire 800 drive... as fast as the internal ATA drives in his Powermac.

[zappy]

Originally posted by DaedalusDX:
Also, if he is capturing video to the hard drive or using it as a work drive for his FCP projects, then FW800 makes a lot of sense.

My father has a good firewire 800 drive... as fast as the internal ATA drives in his Powermac.

But if the FireWire 800 case contains a disc that is not able to fill up the bandwith (all regular IDE harddiscs) it does not make sense. A case that contains more than one harddisc, which are accessed together via hardware RAID in the FireWire case, will be able to use more bandwith and make use of the FirwWire 800 connection.

So even for video editing a single IDE harddisc can be placed in a FireWire 400 case.