[mkral]

I have a small home network, using a swire 1800 DSL modem/router. I have had my powerbook attached to the network via Wifi up until now, but as I am now transferring larger files to/from the powerbook, I need a faster connection. I have an available ethernet connection & a USB connection on the 2wire base station. Which would be the better (faster) way to transfer data. I know that the ethernet is listed as 10/100Base-T (12" 1.5 gig Pbook) while the USB is 2.0 (theoretical top speed of 480mbps.

The other computers on the network are connected via ethernet (if that makes a difference) Which connection would you recommend? If you could explain why (in layman's terms I'd really appreciate that as well)

Thanks in advance,
Mark

[ghporter]

Ethernet is usually the better choice, particularly with a connection straight to the modem. Sure, USB 2.0 is "supposed to" provide "up to" 480Mbps (that's mega BITS per second), but can the modem handle that much? Probably not. On the other hand, ethernet should give you more than enough bandwidth to handle everything your modem can put out, and you never need to worry about a driver-a serious problem with USB devices and Macs.

So use the ethernet. If there is a USB Mac driver for your modem, try that too and time downloading something with both that and the ethernet connection; there's a vague possibility that USB would be at least as good. Just don't bet on it.

[mkral]

gh,

Thanks for the quick reply & the explanation. As obvious as it seems now, I never even thought of doing a direct comparison. I did & just in case anyone else does a search for this in the future, Ethernet is WAY faster. I took a 515.4 mb file & did a transfer to & from the powerbook. I started with the USB connection & it took 11min 8 seconds to download & 13min 10 sec to upload. I then switched to ethernet & the same file took 53 seconds to download. It was so much faster that I didn't bother to test the upload speed.

Thanks again!

[ghporter]

Those drivers get 'ya every time. Glad to help.