external hd: USB2 or firewire

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andre
  • Start date Start date
A

Andre

i want a external hard drive to plug into my desktop or laptop to run
windows and my whole system
is usb2 or firewire better?
my laptop only has usb2... can i install a firewire hub if its better?
is the performance of the hard drive good enough to run windows xp?
any recommendations?... 20GB or 40GB will do coz i dont have a lot of stuff
to store (nor money)
Thanks.!
 
i want a external hard drive to plug into my desktop
or laptop to run windows and my whole system
is usb2 or firewire better?
Click to expand...

Firewire is significant faster in benchmarks.
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/jump/0,24331,3393574,00.html

Likely you wouldnt be able to pick it with say Ghost used tho.
The difference tends to get lost in the compression time etc.
my laptop only has usb2... can i install a firewire hub if its better?
Click to expand...

Yes, but likely it wouldnt be worth it,
depending on how you plan to use the drive.
is the performance of the hard drive good enough to run windows xp?
Click to expand...

Sure, but firewire isnt normally bootable. USB2 can
be, depending on what your system can do boot wise.
 
Andre said:
i want a external hard drive to plug into my desktop or laptop to run
windows and my whole system
is usb2 or firewire better?
Click to expand...

In theory, USB2 has a higher max transfer rate than Firewire. But in
practice, Firewire is faster.
my laptop only has usb2... can i install a firewire hub if its better?
Click to expand...

And where would you plug this firewire hub into??
is the performance of the hard drive good enough to run windows xp?
any recommendations?... 20GB or 40GB will do coz i dont have a lot of stuff
to store (nor money)
Click to expand...


Performance is slower than an internal IDE drive. Not sure if you can
install Windows XP onto an external drive, though. As for Firewire or
USB2, either one should suffice. There's not a significant speed
difference. If you like, you can get a combo enclosure so you can use
either one.


-WD
 
You will not be able to boot from firewire, as the system BIOS does not
support it. Win2K will not even install, you should look up the Microsoft KB
article on this.

| i want a external hard drive to plug into my desktop or laptop to run
| windows and my whole system
| is usb2 or firewire better?
| my laptop only has usb2... can i install a firewire hub if its better?
| is the performance of the hard drive good enough to run windows xp?
| any recommendations?... 20GB or 40GB will do coz i dont have a lot of stuff
| to store (nor money)
| Thanks.!
|
|
 
Will Dormann said:
In theory, USB2 has a higher max transfer rate than Firewire. But in
practice, Firewire is faster.
Click to expand...

Just slightly.
And where would you plug this firewire hub into??
Click to expand...

Into the firewire hub slot, obviously.
Performance is slower than an internal IDE drive.
Click to expand...

A Laptop drive? Please tell.
 
Don't know. Do know that it was easy as heck to setup an ADS firewire
(40GB) on a HP laptop with XP, formatted NTFS of course. ADS drive is
self-powered, plug it into the wall outlet. It wasn't expensive either.
Dave
 
Joe M. said:
Did you see the techtv benches? Up to 70% faster in one of the writing
benches; that's a bit more than "slightly". ;)
Click to expand...

c't benches say different (28MB/s vs 25MB/s for FW).
FW has the edge on reads over USB (36MB/s vs 33MB/s for USB).

That's for CPU Chipset incorporated USB2.
Addin PCI USB controllers are somehow hampered and don't get over 20MB/s.
 
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