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Fastest External HDD Interface?



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 26th 06, 04:09 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Default 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  
Old February 26th 06, 07:45 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Default 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  
Old February 27th 06, 02:16 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Default 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  
Old February 27th 06, 03:50 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Default 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  
Old February 27th 06, 05:46 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Default 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  
Old February 27th 06, 06:13 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
external usenet poster
 
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Default 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  
Old February 27th 06, 08:26 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Default 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  
Old February 27th 06, 10:14 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Posts: n/a
Default 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  
Old February 28th 06, 04:54 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
external usenet poster
 
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Default 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  
Old February 28th 06, 04:55 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
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Default 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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