External storage: USB or Firewire or BOTH

[stev]

I'm in the market for an external drive. However, I'm not totally swayed for either USB nor Firewire.

USB is slow for data transfer, but helps with being portable to other machines.

Firewire is fast for data transfer, but not all machines have firewire.

With the introduction of 1Tb drives, the 640Gb drive have recently dropped in price to the 500Gb retail listing. This is very attractive now since the 500Gb drives are dropping in price too.

So, what to do? Get a USB dealing with the longer transfer time of backing up photos, audio (conference recordings), and computer driver and SP's or go firewire for speed or have an external drive that does both?

The drive that does both port standards of course costs more money.

Then there are ones that do USB/Firewire/eSATA !!! $$$

Hmmm. Newegg better have some sales soon on this before I either loose data or loose $$$ buying something.

[stopthekilling77]

if you want the security of being able to transfer to most computers go USB 2.0

sure we'd love to have firewire all time but my 500Gb US 2.0 LaCie drive works fine for me. transfer times for a lot of gigs are bearable because i know i got it for a good price and it works for what i need it to do

[hnzw_rui]

I've got several external HDDs (Western Digital My Book Essential and Premium) and USB's pretty snappy enough. How much data will you be moving? Only time you'll actually notice the difference in transfer speed between Firewire and USB is when you're dealing with several GBs. Then again, I'm not really hanging around in front of the PC waiting for it to finish copying 5+ GBs. Also, will the drive be tethered to just one computer or are you foreseeing the need to maybe bring it to friends and relatives' houses to show off pics, etc?

If you only need to connect it to your PC, then go Firewire, eSATA if you have it. Else, you'd want it to have USB for insurance. Right now, USB's more ubiquitous than floppy. Whether you should go with a combo or not depends entirely on your wallet.

[ibleet]

USB only. I never use firewire.

[stev]

Oh, it's tempting to bet the USB/Firewire combo since the price hit is with $10 for some models.

However, I've notice some interesting things. A firewire external drive can come with 5400rpm drive while a USB 2.0 can use a 7200rpm drive. In the thought of things, wouldn't they both run nearly the same???

The ideal is to get a USB/Firewire 7200rpm model with a good warranty and price.

So, LR members, what external storage setups are you using, please sound off your brand, model with pros/cons.

Thanks! ! ! ! !

[martini161]

most have both. you might want to wait though. the new 1394 (firewire) draft is supposed to have a transer speed of 3.2 GB/s and uses the same cables as before.

[stev]

I've come to the same conclusion that FZ1 did in this thread ... http://forums.legitreviews.com/about12135.html

The external drives have too many bad reports about them overheating or will not reconnect after a few times of use. It's a random thing, but it happens to most and many of these external drives. Sure some of the fault can be VISTA, no arguments about that. So issues that were minor deal with people pulling out the USB cable before properly shutting down the connection to the drive. All in all, the biggest issue is heat killing these drives.

So, FZ1 may have the best solution, howbeit a little more price, but worth it in the long run for archiving data. Hopefully, FZ1 will return with more infor of where to purchase the unit.

[stev]

OK, the SATA to USB HDD cradle docking stations cost some $$$. ($80 of more without drive )

BUT, I have found something that would do basically the same job for less than half at $30 ...

http://www.satagear.com/JM-20337-USB_SATA_to_USB.html






One of my sons had made a DIY docking cradle for his Zune MP3 player. If I use the $30 cable kit, I should be able to make my own too.
It may be possible to add in my 4-port USB hub into the project as well. Somewhere in my surplus box of computer case parts, I have a few HDD drive cages that could be the ticket along with mounting a fan too. This sounds like a neat project.

The best part of this is, my computer MOBO is PATA (E-IDE), but the USB to SATA moves me up to SATA drives for the future refresh MOBO along the way.

WOOT ! I found this for only $15 at TigerDirect ...
Cables Unlimited USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE Adapter With Power Cable
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... No=3012908

[bmaverick]

Now that is an idea to make your own product work for your needs.

Be sure to post some a how to build it with pictures in these here forums partner.