[X4U] Why does anybody ever get a USB external hard drive?

[Ed Gould]

On Jul 8, 2008, at 3:43 PM, John F. Richardson wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> My answer. Price is the main reason.

While that might be a reasonable option. FW -800 is by far the  
fastest method. Right now I back up (using FW800) to an external  
drive and it takes a bit(+/- 3 hrs) When I tried it a USB 2 it took a  
day. So the bottom line is time. If you can afford to take your  
system offline for a day go for it. Me 3 hours is the max (for me).  
Yes FW800 is more expensive but when you look at as a long term  
investments its a few dollars.
Cheapest is *NOT* always best
You get what you pay for.
Ed

>
> Assumption: an external hard drive is an internal hard drive in a  
> case with
> various ports.
>
> Consider the following. I walk into an Apple store and see Lacie  
> and Western
> Digital drives in various configurations. This happened recently  
> (Drive 2, 3
> and 4). Drive 1 is obsolete except for dirt cheap drives.
>
> Drive 1: USB 2
> Drive 2: USB 2, FW400
> Drive 3: USB 2, FW400, FW800
> Drive 4: USB 2, FW400, FW800, eSata
>
> So, the box specs indicate eSata > FW800 > FW400 > USB 2 [oops,  
> maybe USB 2
> is close to FW400...I forget]. But assume the above is true.
>
> Question 1: What internal drive mechanism is in all of the drives?
>
> If the answer is a standard IDE drive mechanism, then I claim that  
> USB 2 is
> just as good as any other. You just pay more to have the ports  
> included.
> Before eSata, I suspect that this was true. But that could be in  
> the past.
> Today is the future.
>
> Definition: native transfer rates = transfer rate from magnetic  
> storage
> media sectors to the port.
>
> So, if drive 4 really has an internal storage mechanism that has  
> native
> transfer rates that match the eSata specs, then Drive 4 is the best.
>
> But what about Drives 1, 2 and 3? Do they have an internal  
> mechanism with
> native transfer rates in the eSata range? Then it is price. Is the  
> discount
> worth it?
>
> If drives 1, 2 and 3 have an internal mechanism with native  
> transfer rates
> from the storage (seek, latency, cache, etc.,...) to the port (USB2,
> FW400/800) then
>
> YES.....there is no reason to have a USB 2 drive except price and  
> you get
> what you pay for.
>
> So, is there any way to verify the native transfer rates? I have been
> assuming that all FW drives just have a bridge chipset that  
> converts IDE
> mechanism data streams to use USB/FW protocols. I believe that the  
> vast
> majority of original consumer FW drives, even in 2005 or 2006 had  
> IDE disks
> inside a case with a bridge chip. I hope I'm wrong. Please list at  
> least the
> LaCie native rates for FW drives in 2005-2008 time frame. I have  
> asked this
> question (in various forms) several times over the last two years  
> and never
> received an answer even for just one brand name. What are the  
> drives that
> actually pump data at FW800 speeds? Any URL's?
>
> FW was extremely useful for video transfer from camera / high speed  
> device
> to high performance SCSI or "native FW class" hard disks.
>
> John F. Richardson
>
>
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