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Firewire 7200 rpm drive (in firewire enclosure) vs. Internal 5400 rpm drive

T

TheGizmo

Diamond Member
i want to connect my mac mini to a firewire enclosure 750gb 7200 rpm drive, and I'm wondering if its worth it boot from the 750 gig 7200rpm drive, as opposed to the internal 5400 rpm drive that it comes with. Does the firewire delay/lag in relation to ide/sata? or is it just as fast as if it were connected directly to the SATA port inside?

Thanks
 
No internal slots. Video card is non-upgradeable.

Your 750GB Seagate drive won't fit. The Mini only uses 2.5" drives. If it's an Intel mini it uses DDR2-667 SODIMM.
 
dang well that sucks.. i'll have to boot from a 5400 rpm drive when i have a 7200 sitting right next to it.. is there any way to usb connect my 750 gig drive to boot from it or will that be even slower becuase its thru usb
 
I agree with Alfa, that Icy Dock is a good choice. You should hook it up over Firewire instead of USB though because it is a lot faster.
 
Originally posted by: Tyranicus
I agree with Alfa, that Icy Dock is a good choice. You should hook it up over Firewire instead of USB though because it is a lot faster.
Click to expand...

I think that Anand even reviewed the IcyDock (though that may have been the eSATA version) and found it to be quite good for the price. It is the one I would have gotten had I not received my free, albeit screwed up, desktop
 
Originally posted by: TheStu
Originally posted by: Tyranicus
I agree with Alfa, that Icy Dock is a good choice. You should hook it up over Firewire instead of USB though because it is a lot faster.
Click to expand...

I think that Anand even reviewed the IcyDock (though that may have been the eSATA version) and found it to be quite good for the price. It is the one I would have gotten had I not received my free, albeit screwed up, desktop
Click to expand...

OK that sounds good but will it be slower since its connected via firewire as opposed to thru IDE or SATA? I understand I can boot from it and all but would it actually be faster than the 5400 rpm drive that comes with the mac mini or would it be slower because it maxes out the speed of firewire/delay b/c its thru firewire as opposed to directly connected thru the mobo via ide/sata?


p.s. anyone have the mac mini? can you tell me if it has optical output and if the sound card is any good? I'd be doing a lot of music editing with it and have it hooked up to a 5.1 surround sound system.

Thanks guys
 
From experience I'd say you'll get faster speeds from the 7200rpm FireWire drive. I do quite a lot of work with audio on my MacBook, and find recording and playing back multiple tracks much more successful using the external drive than the internal 5400rpm drive.

That said, I think you should boot from the internal anyway. The drive is easily fast enough to provide a rapid experience in OSX with a decent amount of RAM. It would make more sense for two reasons also: firstly you can just use the external as a storage device, so your Mac Mini can work without it and you can also move your data around easily and have more room on your external; secondly if you ever do any video/audio work etc you can run the OS and programs from the internal drive and manipulate the data on the external drive - this should give you the fastest experience!
 
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