External HD how slow are they?

[MaDProFF]

I have an Imac 20" with 2 gig ram, (not enough, but cannot put in more????) I do a lot of photography, and My internal HD is always near full, hence slows the machine down drastically.

I would like to know how fast external drives are compared to an internal one, I would use it to Cache Photoshop, and store all my photos on the Drive and leave my internal drive freed up

Can people answer me this:-

What is the fastest drive that can be connected externally,
what connection is best. I.E Firewire etc.
How reliable is it, and will it auto mount every time I reboot machine?

I do have a network hub and use a Nas Drive, but still find that quite slow 100mb network, though I do believe My Book 1.5 TB has 1000 mb Network, I take it my Imac has 1000mb ethernet?

Suggestions please

[hexonxonx]

Get a firewire 800 external. I have a LaCie 1TB external firewire and it is just as fast as my internal. Firewire is faster than USB 2.0.

As long I don't eject the drive, it mounts automatically every single wake from sleep. The drive will mount upon every boot.

[MaDProFF]

Get a firewire 800 external. I have a LaCie 1TB external firewire and it is just as fast as my internal. Firewire is faster than USB 2.0.

As long I don't eject the drive, it mounts automatically every single wake from sleep. The drive will mount upon every boot.

Thanks for quick replay, is fire wire 800 faster than a 1gig nas drive connected to the network hub?

[hexonxonx]

Thanks for quick replay, is fire wire 800 faster than a 1gig nas drive connected to the network hub?

I'm not sure what nas is but I did have a USB WD Passport connected to my Airport Extreme Base Station and it was very slow copying files to and from it to any of my Macs. My firewire external is extremely fast!

[MaDProFF]

Nas is basically a HD that you plug into a network like machines and printers Etc. it is a WD Mybook world edition it has 2 750 drives in it that are raid and connected to my network hub, but my hub is only 100mb and it is quite slow if I copy gigs across

I see WD make a firewire 800 ext 1TB drive

[Shinji]

Nas is basically a HD that you plug into a network like machines and printers Etc. it is a WD Mybook world edition it has 2 750 drives in it that are raid and connected to my network hub, but my hub is only 100mb and it is quite slow if I copy gigs acrosse

On the WD website the System Requirements for the WD Mybook World Edition only mentions Windows setup....is it possible to set it up on a Mac?

Cheers
Billy

[MaDProFF]

On the WD website the System Requirements for the WD Mybook World Edition only mentions Windows setup....is it possible to set it up on a Mac?

Cheers
Billy

I should think it does, will find out today when it turns up, the Nas Drive My World does work ok with mac, and even in the manual mentions how to set up
My Imac is an intel based mac as well

[MaDProFF]

As it happens

Powerful quad interface -
- USB 2.0 -- For convenience and compatibility among multiple computers.
- FireWire 400 and 800 – High-performance interfaces that are perfect for Macintosh® computers.
- eSATA 3 Gb/s -- The ultra-fast eSATA interface gives you speed comparable to a state-of-the-art internal hard drive.

Formatted for Macintosh - Set up with HFS+ Journaled formatting for complete Macintosh compatibility. Software included requires Mac® OS X 10.4.8 or later. Can easily be reformatted for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.

[dadsgravy]

I have a WD 500GB 7200 rpm external, formated in FAT 32 and connected through usb and it moves at a decent speed. It will take a couple of minutes to move 4 gigs around. I've never noticed a difference between usb 2.0 and fire wire 400 other than usb seems a little faster at times and a little more stable.

And the long and short, my external works extremely well even at 400mb. I have my itunes library on it and I stream it to an airport express and it works flawlessly. Every bit as good as when I had all my music on my internal HD. Works very well when i watch movies I have stored on it. So yeah, never noticed a difference between my external and my internal.

[MaDProFF]

Thanks for replay,

in some ways I am covering all my bases, I have ordered a 1000mb hub also, so I will try always, I need a 2nd back up anyhow, and I need to free up my HD to speed up my Imac.
The reason i would prefer Firewire is it is directly connected to the Imac, and not on the network, so nothing else can interfere with it to slow it down

[dadsgravy]

Sorry, it's late for me. A direct connection using firewire 800 is what I meant. Works very well. Like I said, I never notice a difference or slow downs direct connecting with usb or firewire 400. Works as good and fast as my internal drive.

Firewire 400 has given me minor problems on both my computers on shut down and when I try and disconnect the drive . But this could just be my HD. Or the FAT 32 format. ?

[MaDProFF]

Anyhow for anyone else in my situation I bought the WD My Book Studio Edition Ironically from a PC retailers only, but on the box it clearly states "Creative Power for Mac"

I plug it in, imac found it no problem, and is moving over 102 gig taking approx an hour, I think it will be less but still not to bad, Shame it is not white though greyish, my other WD myworld is white

[Dartholomew]

I have the WD MyBook World Edition II (2TB) NAS drive for my PC setup and it is SLOW. Not a networking/wireless issue either, it seems WD used a slow processor, leading to *unbearably* slow write speeds...something like 30 hours to copy 60GB-80GB. I wouldn't recommend it.

But that said, it instantly showed up on my new Mac, albeit as one of those "blue screen monitor" PC shares. I've had no problems accessing or using the drive from the Mac. Because it shows up as a PC, I don't think it works with Time Machine.

[MaDProFF]

I have the WD MyBook World Edition II (2TB) NAS drive for my PC setup and it is SLOW. Not a networking/wireless issue either, it seems WD used a slow processor, leading to *unbearably* slow write speeds...something like 30 hours to copy 60GB-80GB. I wouldn't recommend it.

But that said, it instantly showed up on my new Mac, albeit as one of those "blue screen monitor" PC shares. I've had no problems accessing or using the drive from the Mac. Because it shows up as a PC, I don't think it works with Time Machine.

You are right, I copied 100 gig in an hour to the firewire 800 the one I bought today, I have a my world as well 1.5 TB, 750 per drive in raid 2, and it took 40 mins to copy 8 gig and that is on the 1000mb network, so I will use it slowly for a Back up (The My world one I have had a few months now)

[Shinji]

I should think it does, will find out today when it turns up, the Nas Drive My World does work ok with mac, and even in the manual mentions how to set up
My Imac is an intel based mac as well

Sorry to be a pain but did you set up the NAS MyBook World Edition on the mac? Cos what I see in the user manual/quick installatioin guide on WD's website only shows up Windows set-up.

Cheers
Billy