FireWird HD's

[sw33p0r]

Is it worth it to buy a FireWire card and get an External FireWire harddrive? Is the speed way better than a scsi? If so I want to buy one but I have not heard much about performance.

 

[DesignDawg]

I have a friend who just got a 30 GB Western Digital. I check it out, and the performance was GREAT for an external drive. It can move about 300 MB per minute. (3 GB in 10 minutes). So, performance-wise, that's a sustained data transfer of only 5 MB per second. --So, no, it's not faster than SCSI (at least not the newest mutation of SCSI), but for an external drive (and a 5400 RPM one at that), it's pretty nice. --Plus the ability to hot-swap between a mac and PC is pretty nice (which is the reason he got it in the first place.)

Ricky
DesignDawg

 

[sw33p0r]

are they're any other kinds? i thought they were supposed to be like 400Mb/sec wth?

 

[DesignDawg]

Well, keep in mind that Mb is megaBITS, which are 1/8 the size of a megaBYTE.
You probably already knew that, but if you didn't, then it will probably be a big shocker that 400 Mb/sec only equals 50 MB/sec.
And firewire may have that kind of bandwidth, but finding a firewire DRIVE that will push data at that rate...well....it just ain't gonna happen. I'm sure there are faster ones than my friend's, but they come at a price. Let me put it to you this way:
He got a 30 GB firewire drive. $350.00. It sustains 5 MB/sec.
I got a 30 GB IBM GXP75. $150.00 It sustains 38 MB/sec.

If you are looking for SPEED of a drive, then NO WAY IN HELL is firewire the way to go. If you are looking for the fastest, easiest PORTABLE drive, then go that route, but NO, firewire is not gonna be the biggest performer.

Ricky
DesignDawg