want to buy a HD WD need help :confused:

[fido7up]

Hi guys i am new here in forums
but not new to mac World

ok i Got new Mac-book pro 15 inch 8Gb ram 3.06 GHz 256GB SD 2009

usually when i buy something i go do a small research on it and this time i did but wt happened to me i was using the old model and witch have The Express Card in it and now i have the new model witch it doesn't so i didn't notice when i bought it that the new 15 inch they replace it with SD slot Witch is weird in my opinion any how now i need To buy a HD to back up my stuff on it and i chose the The brand WD Studio edition II 4TB but now am confused coz i already used Fire wire before on my 1 TB studio edition II its nice and Fast but i was wondering how can i Get a faster? i mean Fire wire i dont see it enough coz i used SATA but now i cant use it on my new mac-book


basically i dont know wt should i chose the Ethernet HD or the 1 with Fire wire and 800 + SATA witch i cant use



I am not sure but i think that the Ethernet HD will have to use my computer power more than the fire wire wt i mean the speed and performance will relay on my computer more than the fire wire am not sure so if any 1 know how he can calculate if it will will be faster or not with my comp specs Or maybe tell me how to do the calculation the thing am going to use it for important thing ( i am Studying Digital animation and use big files )

PS: maybe IF i did use something to change the port in my mac from Fire wire 800 to SATA will work with Full speed 3Gbs or it will be in the speed of fire wire 800 MPS

[fangpyre]

Why Apple dropped Express Card is anyone's guess.
But as much as that technology is amazing, it just doesn't seem to done much.
You will find very little usage for it.

Which one to use really depends on your usage.

But as far as connections are concerned, you are always limited to the weakest link.
So an eSATA connected via Firewire is limited to Firewire's speed.
If you hard disk supports Ethernet Base-T, then use that.
But don't work out connections to do that, Firewire 800 is in the higher spectrum of speeds (though for sure not the fastest), and some external disks have trouble keeping up with it.

[fido7up]

TQ for ur answers

but still i want to know witch will be faster to transfer and copy Data from HD to my computre ! and from computre to the HD


and i am sure i wont use it for networking or anything else i only going to back up stuff on it and move arround difrent places and copy Data thats all but also 4TB sure about it not less than that and TQ

plz i need more opinnion about this from difrent ppl

[michl]

Well, 1000 > 800 so in theory 1 Gigabit Ethernet should be faster than Firewire 800...

Be aware though that these are nominal maximum throughput, and that actual speeds are typically nowhere close. Results will also depend on the network / other connected devices, etc. Precisely, GB Ethernet tends to lose speed with high demand (among other problems...)

So, in real life, I would think that Firewire 800 greatly outperforms Gigabit Ethernet.

(Of course if the WD drive doesn't support GB Ethernet then forget that option altogether...)

[ausinoman]

Well, 1000 > 800 so in theory 1 Gigabit Ethernet should be faster than Firewire 800...

Be aware though that these are nominal maximum throughput, and that actual speeds are typically nowhere close. Results will also depend on the network / other connected devices, etc. Precisely, GB Ethernet tends to lose speed with high demand (among other problems...)

So, in real life, I would think that Firewire 800 greatly outperforms Gigabit Ethernet.

(Of course if the WD drive doesn't support GB Ethernet then forget that option altogether...)

Gigabit Ethernet is only equal to about 125MB/sec.
Firewire 800 can only do 100MB/sec but ONLY 55MB/sec to a single drive.

(sourced from http://www.lacie.com/download/more/W...reWire_800.pdf)
The advantage of the Firewire will be that speed will only be dependant on the local machine and how busy it is and the traffic on the internal disks as well as the Firewire links. For large I/O operations I would agree that the Firewire will likely outperform the Ethernet. Not least because it'll be throttled by the internal disk i/o on both sides anway.

[ausinoman]

I got bitten by the WD Firewire external disks on my PowerMac G4. There is a bug that will prevent booting from one of these disks on Firewire.. Sort of negated my use for the disk which was for Carbon Copy Cloner.

[michl]

Gigabit Ethernet is only equal to about 125MB/sec.
Firewire 800 can only do 100MB/sec but ONLY 55MB/sec to a single drive.

(sourced from http://www.lacie.com/download/more/W...reWire_800.pdf)
The advantage of the Firewire will be that speed will only be dependant on the local machine and how busy it is and the traffic on the internal disks as well as the Firewire links. For large I/O operations I would agree that the Firewire will likely outperform the Ethernet. Not least because it'll be throttled by the internal disk i/o on both sides anway.

Thanks. I'm actually wondering how old is that Lacie white paper. Note that there is no date and then their chart on p.3 refers their 400GB model and Mac OS X 10.2.4(!) so... We're talking circa 2003...

I don't know but, hasn't drive technology improved since then?

But anyway, this more recent performance comparison (2007) shows indeed a 55 MB/sec write speed for FW800, but then 75 MB/sec read speed.

So how fast is GB ethernet in practice? Here it says 47 to 60 MB/sec only...

[ausinoman]

Thanks. I'm actually wondering how old is that Lacie white paper. Note that there is no date and then their chart on p.3 refers their 400GB model and Mac OS X 10.2.4(!) so... We're talking circa 2003...

I don't know but, hasn't drive technology improved since then?

Well, I don't think SATA has got any faster... and 5400 rpm is still the standard vendor disk stuck in most laptops. What has increased, if anything, would be the cache sizes on the disk.

But anyway, this more recent performance comparison (2007) shows indeed a 55 MB/sec write speed for FW800, but then 75 MB/sec read speed.

So how fast is GB ethernet in practice? Here it says 47 to 60 MB/sec only...

Seems reasonable to me. I would defintely expect Firewire to outperform Gigabit Ethernet in most "real life" situations. But, in any case it is going to come down to the available bandwidth on the locally attached SATA disk/s. If your local disk is slow - then nothing is going to get around that bottleneck.

[fido7up]

hmm ! thanks ppl for your helpd anyway i did buy WD 4 TB with firewire 800 and SATA and now it is so fast and smooth

BTW! the pro edition II is 7200 Rpm so fast but unlucky now it almost FULL and am thinking to buy the 8TB WD but that have USB 2.0 and ethernet and thats it bad i dont want to use usb its too slow and ethernet also slow any one have any news or rumor about WD ShareSpace 8TB when they will ADD USB 3.0 to it that time i will buy it

lol it sounds crazy 4TB full and my mac full LOL