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chasg · Feb 3, 2006, 07:55 AM

Hi All,

I went looking for a tiny external drive so that I could easily work on projects as I move between Macs.

I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and have an ipod as both a portable drive and, well, as an ipod. So, I picked up a 60Gb video.

I'm at the moment transferrring about 500Mb of photoshop and jpeg files, and it's taking far longer than I thought it woul (fyi: I move a lot of data around from machine to machine and in and out of external drives, so I'm used to a certain throughput)

I'm now assuming that the ipod is optimised to move data at a rate for ipod-sized video (not too fast), I'm just curious to find out what people think should be the throughput value (I'm guessing it's not USB 2.0's theoretical 480Mbit/sec). So, what rpm is the ipod's drive? (10? ;-)

fyi: the other option for portable drives was a Smartdisk Firelite, which I understand uses the same drive mechanism. I seriously doubt that it would be so slow (I'd expect it to transfer at the max rate of it's bus, whether usb 2 or firewire).

Thanks in advance for any help,

Chas

TheSpaz · Feb 3, 2006, 11:12 AM

The iPod is technically designed to only work as hard as it has to. It's probably a low RPM drive to conserve power and not get too hot. The USB 2.0 probably has something to do with the Data rate as well. My old 3RD Generation iPod moved data very quickly though the FireWire cable. I guess all you can do is just wait... it's probably not broken or anything like that.

Maybe someone else here can explain it better that knows more about it than me.

icruise · Feb 3, 2006, 02:14 PM

How fast (or slow) are we talking about? How long does it take to copy 1GB of data?

chasg · Feb 3, 2006, 08:10 PM

Thanks to you both for answering.

USB 2 should be faster than firewire 400 (which, as you might have guessed, is 400Mbit/sec to USB 2's 480Mbit/sec).

That half gig of data took about 5 minutes (so, unless the problem is on a curve, a gig should take about 10 minutes, waaay to long for my comfort!). If memory serves, even the iPod's 4200rpm drive should be able to keep up or exceed USB 2's datarate, and this is making me wonder why things are so slow.

Grr!

Chas

icruise · Feb 3, 2006, 09:37 PM

As a test, I copied 1.13GB of files to my 60GB iPod and it took 3 minutes 12 seconds. Now, if you're dealing with lots and lots of very small files, it could take longer (I copied 7 video files of about 170mb apiece) but it does seem like you're seeing abnormally long copy times.

chasg · Feb 4, 2006, 02:11 PM

thanks for that info, looks like I'm dealing with a problem, _somewhere_. I haven't been totally thorough: I haven't tried a second cable (don't have one), a different machine, a different ipod etc :-)

I'll figure it out, but it's good to know what it _should_ be capable of. Thanks again for the info and the help,

Chas

chabig · Feb 4, 2006, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by chasg

USB 2 should be faster than firewire 400 (which, as you might have guessed, is 400Mbit/sec to USB 2's 480Mbit/sec).

It has been shown over and over again that USB 2 is NOT faster than Firewire 400. In all real-world tests, Firewire always wins.

Chris

Taipan · Feb 4, 2006, 03:44 PM

Hi!

I recently copied a 4.2 GB file to a friends (Windows-) G5 iPod and was pretty disappointed that it took about half an hour (before it aborted because FAT can't handle more than 4GB, hehe). That translates to about 20 MBit/s if I'm not mistaken, which is a little too low if you ask me...
That was on a PowerMac G5 Dual 1,8's front USB port.

analogika · Feb 5, 2006, 06:06 AM

USB2 is NOT faster than Firewire 400 (unless the Firewire implementation is botched).

the 480Mbps for USB 2 is *maximum* transfer rate. USB transfers in bursts, rather than a steady stream. So a 480Mbit maximum burst rate translates into a much lower average.