LaCie Biggest

[waynestewart]

Picked up a LaCie Biggest F800 RAID array. It only had four 120gb PATA HDs in it but I replaced them with 400gb HDs. Still deciding whether to keep it as RAID 0 or go to RAID 5.

Then I was wondering how they did compared to other drives and interfaces so I copied over a 32gb file and timed it. Then I tried a few other drives connected to another computer. I was a bit disappointed; the numbers were less than I thought they’d be for FW800 on any drive. So much for my illusions.

Still USB 3.0 was almost 3X FW800. FW800 was twice FW400. FW400 was twice USB 2.0

 

[CC_333]

Actually, FW400 and USB 2.0 are roughly equivalent at 400Mbps for FW400 versus 480Mbps for USB 2.0. USB's extra overhead slows it down slightly, giving FW400 a small advantage.

USB 1.1, on the other hand, is WAY slower than FW400 at 12Mbps.

I hope this helps?

c

 

[waynestewart]

I've always found a very noticeable speed difference between USB 2.0 and FW400.

 

[CC_333]

Yes, in theory, USB 2 should be a bit faster, but in practice, FW400 is faster I think because it's more efficient.

c

 

[LazarusNine]

Isn't it something to do with the fact that the CPU is involved to a greater extent with USB 2.0 whereas FW400 isn't as CPU-intensive? That and the more advanced up and down stream of the FW400 tech. Anyway, yeah - a FW400 external hard drive was always more reliably quick for me. DVD burners as well. There's almost no comparison between FW400 and USB 2.0 on my old LaCie burner. Things have improved a lot since then, though, because I've got a USB 2.0 burner now that operates perfectly well.

P.S. Anyone else remember how unreliable burning CDs over USB 1.1 was? Or was that just me? Made a lot of coasters back then...

 

[Macdrone]

Pre OS X all cd burning was iffy no matter the bus.  Different formats, finalization, software, hardware (speed) , and bad media made it a nightmare early on.  I always defaulted to 1X burning which image stored in ram in my blue and white , and made sure buffer was huge , and verify would complete.

 

[waynestewart]

I had good luck using a SCSI burner and I believe initially Toast 3.5.2 on a 7600. Once I learned to not touch the computer until the burn was done things went well.

Once the iMac came out, I had to burn new users CDs for our User Group. Usually I'd get the request for more an hour and a half before the meeting started which made it tight time wise. I didn't do a bunch ahead of time because that was when Apple allowed us to distribute software updates and I wanted to include the latest.