[NDBounce]

Sorry for 2 similar posts on the same day.

I am looking at upgrading my Powerbook G4 HD to a 160GB Drive. I am also thinking I should get an enclosure for my 80 GB Drive.

My question is this: how noticible is the speed difference going to be (if at all) using Firewire 800 vs 400.

The drive I will be putting into the case is the Drive that originally came with the PowerBook (an 80GB 5400 Toshiba drive, it is NOT SATA, it is ATA or IDE).

My understanding is that I will not get significant speed enhancement with Firewire 800 (I guess the drive may be the limiting agent). Can someone confirm if this is true or not.

Thank you,

O
B unce!

[CharlesS]

With that drive, I doubt you will notice any difference at all. With a newer, faster, drive you definitely would.

[NDBounce]

So essentially I can buy a HD and then a FW 400 enclosure for the old drive, correct? I am assuming by Newer Drive you are referring to a SATA drive, am I correct in that? Or would a newer IDE Drive also do the trick?

Finally, if I got a 3.5" IDE (not SATA) FW 800 enclosure, and bought a 7200RPM Seagate drive (IDE, not SATA) to use as a backup drive, would I see a (significant) speed difference in that versus having the same IDE drive in a FireWire 400 Housing.

My dilemma is this, do I want to buy a housing unit for the old drive and use that for backing up, or should I get a 3.5" Drive with a housing and use that to back up? And in all of this I am trying to determine with what type of drive Firewire 800 will give me a noticeable speed bump, and whether I am what the premium will cost. So if a FireWire 800 with a 3.5" IDE drive (which I have a 250GB unused drive (IDE 7200)) will give me a significant speed boost, I may decide to simply buy a casing for that drive. Otherwise I am considering getting a casing for the old laptop drive and using that to back up important documents. BTW I am mostly backing up files for school and a podcast I produce using Garage band. I have about 60GB worth of data at the moment. I want the bigger drive in my laptop because I often will put a movie on my HD when I travel, and space is now getting tight when I do that.

So if you were me, would you get a case for the old laptop drive (FW 400), or a case for the 250GB drive (taken from an old server) which is a 3.5" IDE drive (Seagate). And you would get a case for the 250GB drive, would it be FW 400 or 800?

Peace,

O
B unce!

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by NDBounce 

So essentially I can buy a HD and then a FW 400 enclosure for the old drive, correct? I am assuming by Newer Drive you are referring to a SATA drive, am I correct in that? Or would a newer IDE Drive also do the trick?

Both SATA and parallel ATA are faster than FW800 these days, and much faster than FW400, so with a modern drive there'll be a noticeable difference no matter what interface it uses. With an old laptop drive, I'm not sure you'll notice a difference. If there is one, it definitely won't be as dramatic as what you'd see with modern drives.

Finally, if I got a 3.5" IDE (not SATA) FW 800 enclosure, and bought a 7200RPM Seagate drive (IDE, not SATA) to use as a backup drive, would I see a (significant) speed difference in that versus having the same IDE drive in a FireWire 400 Housing.

A new 7200 RPM Seagate? Oh, definitely, especially if you get a good FW800 enclosure with an Oxford chipset (Oxford makes what are generally regarded as the best performing FireWire chipsets available).

My dilemma is this, do I want to buy a housing unit for the old drive and use that for backing up, or should I get a 3.5" Drive with a housing and use that to back up? And in all of this I am trying to determine with what type of drive Firewire 800 will give me a noticeable speed bump, and whether I am what the premium will cost.

Time Machine works best with a backup drive that's larger than the drive you're backing up, since it keeps old versions of your files as well as the current versions. My internal hard drive is 250 GB and I've only used about 134 GB of it, and my 500 GB external backup drive is already almost full. So, I think your best bet is to get a new large 3.5" drive in an Oxford-based FW800 enclosure.

[mduell]

5400RPM 80GB 2.5" drives top out at about 40MBps and bottom out at about 20MBps... so FW400 (which is good for about 35MBps) is a slight bottleneck with an empty disk, but I really don't think FW800 is worth the price.