External drive - USB or Firewire?

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Just out of curiosity, who on here with an external drive connects with USB 2.0 and who is using Firewire?

I was looking at a WD drive with USB and FW connections, but noted that the USB only drive was much cheaper.

Are the benefits of FW worth the extra $$? I have seen some reports showing they are close together in speeds, and others that show on a Mac that FW is almost twice as fast

Thoughts on the matter appreciated!

Cheers :D
 

bobtomay

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Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
You can check out the thread I put together where I documented my search for an external drive. While it's 2 yrs old now, think it's still pretty accurate except for the pricing and the size of drives available. You can scroll down to post # 11 for the results of multiple timed tests of USB vs FW.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ot...063-hard-drive-reviews-500-gb-w-fw-800-a.html

I have replaced my internal drive now with a 7200 rpm. Should probably post some more testing to see what effect that has on transfer speeds.

I will also say that 2 years later, I am still happy with my choice of the OWC enclosure. It has performed admirably well.
 
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Thanks bobtomay

Good post that was an enjoyable read - real life speed tests based on file sizes rather than max speed is more meaningful in my mind, so yours has helped a lot :)
 

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