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#1
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six
months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? Thanks, Mike |
#2
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
Mike wrote
While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. Its more complicated than that physical layer speed, and firewire is a bit faster than USB2. External sata is quite a bit faster than both. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer Yes. or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? No. What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? Cost effective complicates things because external sata isnt that cheap. Does the speed actually matter that much for the 6 months ? |
#3
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
"Rod Speed" wrote in message ... Mike wrote While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. Its more complicated than that physical layer speed, and firewire is a bit faster than USB2. External sata is quite a bit faster than both. SATA = 150MBs SATA II = 300MBs A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer Yes. OK, so the through put will be about 100MBs? 1394b 800Mbs divided by 8 = 100MBs. or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? No. What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? Cost effective complicates things because external sata isnt that cheap. Does the speed actually matter that much for the 6 months ? Not really, it became an intellectual exercise and I want to buy hardware that'll be fast to compliment my new fast PC. mIKE |
#4
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
Mike wrote
Rod Speed wrote Mike wrote While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. Its more complicated than that physical layer speed, and firewire is a bit faster than USB2. External sata is quite a bit faster than both. SATA = 150MBs SATA II = 300MBs Those physical layer speeds are irrelevant, the actual thruput is determined by the drive physical characteristics, sectors per track and rpm. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer Yes. OK, so the through put will be about 100MBs? No, less than that, determined by the drive physical characteristics. 1394b 800Mbs divided by 8 = 100MBs. Again, there's a lot more involved in thruput than the physical layer speed. or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? No. What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? Cost effective complicates things because external sata isnt that cheap. Does the speed actually matter that much for the 6 months ? Not really, it became an intellectual exercise and I want to buy hardware that'll be fast to compliment my new fast PC. Then sata is the way to go, at a higher cost than usb2 and firewire. |
#5
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
Mike wrote:
While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? Thanks, Mike The most "cost effective" is the cheapest that will satisfy _your need_. Since you haven't defined the need, nobody can give you a good answer. The cheapest might be a used SCSI array, or a zip disk on a parallel port, for all we know from what you've told us. -- The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to minimize spam. Our true address is of the form . |
#6
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
Arno Wagner wrote:
Previously Mike wrote: While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? External SATA will give you just the same speed as an internal disk. USB2 and firewire have a tendency to be significanlty slower due to the tranlation that is neded. If speed is your main concern then SATA is you only option. But note that the SATA interface speed is significantly higher than the disk speed (as it should be, otherwise the interface would be a bottleneck). SATA is not his _only_ option. SCSI works fine for external storage. LVD allows something like 5 meters of cable as well, which can be a great convenience. But you pay for it. -- --John to email, dial "usenet" and validate (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
#7
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
Mike wrote:
While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? Thanks, Mike You won't notice any real difference between 1394a and 1394b. Firewire is marginally quicker than USB2. On the PC, I typically get a transfer rate of anything from 15MB/sec to 25MB/sec using either firewire or USB. I don't get an awful lot more on my internal, single SATA drives - although the mass storage drives in RAID 0 give about a 20% boost in one or two machines, and 30% in others. On the Mac, I get an absolute minimim of 42MB/sec firewire, and a tiny bit less (maybe 40MB/sec) with USB. With a single SATA drive (I don't have RAID in my Macs) I get well over 45MB/sec. In all cases, there is practically no difference whether I am using SATA or PATA drives. In my main recovery machine, which has a PCI-express SATA2 controller, running anything from 4 to 8 drives in RAID 0, there is no appreciable difference whether the drives I'm using are SATA150 or SATA300. In the UK, eSATA devices are right down in price; about £45 for the housing, cable and adaptor, plus the cost of the drive. (This is a fairly simple setup, taking one of the SATA channels to a blanking plate / adaptor, then running another SATA cable from that to the housing.) Odie -- Retrodata www.retrodata.co.uk Globally Local Data Recovery Experts |
#8
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
Arno Wagner wrote: Previously Mike wrote: While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? External SATA will give you just the same speed as an internal disk. USB2 and firewire have a tendency to be significanlty slower due to the tranlation that is neded. If speed is your main concern then SATA is you only option. But note that the SATA interface speed is significantly higher than the disk speed (as it should be, otherwise the interface would be a bottleneck). SATA is not his _only_ option. SCSI works fine for external storage. LVD allows something like 5 meters of cable as well, 10 to 12 to 24 meters even, depending on which LVD standard or what SCSI configuration. which can be a great convenience. But you pay for it. |
#9
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
I still configure scanners using SCSI interface to PC.
Seems almost nostalgic. Mike "J. Clarke" wrote in message ... Arno Wagner wrote: Previously Mike wrote: While looking for an external HDD to hold me over 'til I build a PC in six months or so I've been exploring external HDD interfaces. Currently, I have a 4 year old Dell Dimension w/ XP Pro. I'm going to buy a USB2 Firewire 1394b internal card for it .I'd like to find out if 1394b is worth the additional expense. I believe 1394b is capable of 800Mbs while 1394a is capable of 400Mbs. A SATA II HDD (300MBs) in an external case w/ a 1394b interface will a PC be able to make use of this high speed data transfer or will the high data speed be wasted because the PC and XP Pro don't know how to handle these speeds? What is the most cost effective combination for an external HDD? External SATA will give you just the same speed as an internal disk. USB2 and firewire have a tendency to be significanlty slower due to the tranlation that is neded. If speed is your main concern then SATA is you only option. But note that the SATA interface speed is significantly higher than the disk speed (as it should be, otherwise the interface would be a bottleneck). SATA is not his _only_ option. SCSI works fine for external storage. LVD allows something like 5 meters of cable as well, which can be a great convenience. But you pay for it. -- --John to email, dial "usenet" and validate (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
#10
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Fastest External HDD Interface?
"Arno Wagner" wrote in message ... True. And has much better cabeling too. But very expensive. Arno I'm going to pass on SCSI. Mike |
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