[parasbuy]

I have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. I use my MBP as a portable extension of my Mac Pro and need to copy about 300GB of files from my desktop to my laptop. The MBP still has just (2) slow-pokey USB2 and a FW400 port. I also have an eSata Express 34 Card. Normally, I don't need to transfer 300GB, but certainly 30GB can be and all of these interfaces run pretty slow for transferring files. The Mac Pro has (4) USB2 and (4) FW800. Both are running 7200RPM SATA drives (I could upgrade to SSD). My MBP has a front-side bus of 667khz, but I'm not sure how much of a difference the 1Mhz on the new ones would make here; The Mac Pro has 1.33Mhz.

Is there a way to parallel process, if you will, file transferring across (2) USB ports or maybe (2) USB and a FW port, etc.? With large video files and photography files becoming so pervasive, this might be able to help a lot to hold over until the cost of Fiber Wire comes down. I have an external drive that has a USB and eSata port, so the same question applies there.

Thanks,
Paras.

[Big Mac]

Are you asking if it's possible to combine the transfer rate of two different ports together to transfer a file in parallel between them?

If so, that's not possible. To get more speed out of your laptop, you could put an eSATA card in your Express Card slot.

[Waragainstsleep]

I would think gigabit ethernet would be your best choice as things stand. You could add a second port to the MBP via an expresscard and then you actually can combine the two ports together and do the same on the Mac Pro.

This will be a minor inconvenience if you normally connect either machine to your network vie ethernet as you will have to rejig all your network settings every time you want to do this, but it will be way faster than transferring 300GB via USB 2.

Sonnet - Presto Gigabit Ethernet Pro ExpressCard/34: 1000/100/10BaseT Gigabit Ethernet ExpressCard/34 Compatible in MacBook Pro and Windows Notebooks With ExpressCard Slot

[Leonard]

How fast is the HD in the mbp? Because in the end your limited by it's write speed.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I would think gigabit ethernet would be your best choice as things stand.

Seconded.