Firstly thanks to Nick for his recent review of the latest Western Digital external hard drives.
I've decided to get at least one,or possibly two,Western Digital 250GB drives.I plan to use these as storage drives for images,as well as back-up drives.
I'm a little unsure as to the merits of paying the extra £'s for the USB/Firewire version,as opposed to USB only
Is there any need to go for Firewire,or will USB II be fine?
Any speed difference (if there is any) between the two would be useful,I guess.But what concerns me is the option/need of having two, or possibly even more drives connected to the PC at the same time.
I have two easilly accessible USB II sockets,and a single Firewire socket on the front of my PC.
If I need more sockets than this at a later stage,is that possible?,and practical? or is it not necesary as any external drives can be connected together (daisy chained is a term I've seen used)?
With the above considerations in mind,which would you recommend? USBII or Firewire.
99% of USB drives are on all the time, IE the drive is actively spinning. This over time means that the drive will have a shorter life span than that in a PC, where much of their life is spent off or parked.
I have found the best external storage solution to be either, a NAS/SAN or solid state (ie DVD-R).
The buffalo terastation i would highly recommend. Starting at £350 they are not cheap but its worth it...
This may seem a little like over kill, but my background is in enterprise support...
Btw On USB vs firewire, i prefer USB... if you dont have enough sockets get a USB HUB (powered)
Posted by Sean Bolton on August 8, 2006 at 8:05 AM
Hi Justin
I use two Lacie External Hard Drives, both USB 2.
I think Firewire has potentially faster transfer rates but USB2 is pretty quick and for backups this is not such an issue.
So unless transfer speed is critical a USB2 drive, plus maybe a hub, will be sufficient.
Google 'usb versus firewire' for oodles of camparison information.
USB is the common choice - simply because it is exactly that - common! It's in every PC and Mac these days. Firewire on the other hand is seen as being more of a "pro" thing - mainly I guess due to it being adopted by the Apple Mac and digital artwork people. While it is in every Mac, it still isn't always common in PC's.
From my perspective, I always buy an external unit with both Firewire and USB connectors - it has the most flexibility. Firewire, although technically slower than USB2 on paper (400Mbps vs 480Mbps), usually beats USB2 hands-down in practice. This is simply down to the way it handles continuous sustained data transfer between devices. (ie it will backup/copy large directories of camera files between your PC and the disk faster).
Don't worry about only having one Firewire port - Firewire devices can be "daisy-chained", whilst USB devices cannot and must either be plugged directly in to the computer or go via a USB concentrator/hub. BTW, USB hubs tend to slow things down a bit, and also generally need another power plug too (significant when you've upwards of 20 plugs under the desk ). If you want to get the best speed out of your external disk, then it needs to be plugged directly into it's own USB port - not via a hub.
A couple of things to watch out for though:
1) As with USB ports, not all Firewire connections are born equal. My PC's built-in motherboard firewire ports (<6moths old) have a lower throughput than those on the 4 year old Adaptec USB2/Firewire400 PCI Combo card that I also use.
2) There is now a higher speed variant of Firewire called (unsurprisingly) Firewire 800. The connectors on FW800 are different to FW400 ones, but you can get a combined FW800-to-FW400 cable to plug in a FW800 drive to a FW400 system. The FW800 will drop to operating in a FW400 speed.
3) If a system is offering all three connections (USB2/FW400/FW800), then you will find that there will be 1x USB2, 1xFW400 and 2x FW800 connectors. You can still daisy chain using the FW800 connectors.
While I agree with Paul that things like NAS/SAN are great (disks plugged into a network and running at network speeds 100Mb/s or 1Gb/s - slower than direct connected external drives), the nice thing with devices like the MyBook and Maxtor One-touch etc is that they can be turned off and totally electrically isolated . (I never leave them running all-day every day - I live in a rural area and we have a c**p overhead power supply. Even using power filters/UPS/surge arrestors if there is any hint of thunderstorms in the area then the external disks are all unplugged from the mains and from the computer).
Those that offer "on-line" redundancy (eg RAID arrays) are great for the day-to-day working disks inside your computer, but I would rather use an external stand-alone drive as backup - they're cheaper and you can have two totally independant disks (kept in two independant locations for fire/theft security!) for backup usually for less cost than a single NAS/SAN unit.
FWIW, you may see some external disks such as the Lacie Bigdisk units which offer RAID0/1 and big disk space - These units actually have two or more disks inside a small enclosure. This can add to heat. I would avoid these and go for a single disk instead ~ typically the biggest of the single disks are running at about 500Gb at the moment.
Hope that helps and doesn't just add to the confusion!
Thanks for your advice.
Unfortunately £350+ for the terastation you mention,whilst perhaps an excellent storage option,is not financially an option at this time.
I'm just really looking for a 'cheapish' and cheerful option of freeing up space on my PC's internal drives,and more importantly,creating back-ups.
I'm aware of the added wear and tear of allowing the external drives to run when not being used,so I only plan on using them as and when necessary,keeping them switched off and/or disconnected at all other times.
I will be backing-up to DVD (possibly even twice) in addition to the hard drive.
Sean
Thanks for your input and for sharing your prefered method.
Nick
Many,many thanks indeed for taking the time to type such a detailed and thorough reply.
Your time and assistance is really appreciated .
It hasn't added to the confusion at all,but has made all my various options,now crystal clear.
For the sake of an extra £16 I shall go for the 250gb USB/Firewire E-book as opposed to the USB only one.
I currently have 4 Maxtor 300Gb and 4 Lacie 250Gb drives all of which are 7200 rpm (make sure you get fast spin speeds not 5400 rpm versions). All of them can be used as USB II or Firewire and come with cables for both.
Personally, I use Firewire 'cos my setup is geared around that (with Firewire hubs).
Frankly, you'd be pressed to find much difference in normal use between USB II and Firewire. More important (vastly more important) is the spin speed
Discussion
7 repliesI've decided to get at least one,or possibly two,Western Digital 250GB drives.I plan to use these as storage drives for images,as well as back-up drives.
I'm a little unsure as to the merits of paying the extra £'s for the USB/Firewire version,as opposed to USB only
Is there any need to go for Firewire,or will USB II be fine?
Any speed difference (if there is any) between the two would be useful,I guess.But what concerns me is the option/need of having two, or possibly even more drives connected to the PC at the same time.
I have two easilly accessible USB II sockets,and a single Firewire socket on the front of my PC.
If I need more sockets than this at a later stage,is that possible?,and practical? or is it not necesary as any external drives can be connected together (daisy chained is a term I've seen used)?
With the above considerations in mind,which would you recommend? USBII or Firewire.
Thanks from a rather obvious PC novice
99% of USB drives are on all the time, IE the drive is actively spinning. This over time means that the drive will have a shorter life span than that in a PC, where much of their life is spent off or parked.
I have found the best external storage solution to be either, a NAS/SAN or solid state (ie DVD-R).
The buffalo terastation i would highly recommend. Starting at £350 they are not cheap but its worth it...
This may seem a little like over kill, but my background is in enterprise support...
Btw On USB vs firewire, i prefer USB... if you dont have enough sockets get a USB HUB (powered)
I use two Lacie External Hard Drives, both USB 2.
I think Firewire has potentially faster transfer rates but USB2 is pretty quick and for backups this is not such an issue.
So unless transfer speed is critical a USB2 drive, plus maybe a hub, will be sufficient.
Google 'usb versus firewire' for oodles of camparison information.
cheers
Sean
USB is the common choice - simply because it is exactly that - common! It's in every PC and Mac these days. Firewire on the other hand is seen as being more of a "pro" thing - mainly I guess due to it being adopted by the Apple Mac and digital artwork people. While it is in every Mac, it still isn't always common in PC's.
From my perspective, I always buy an external unit with both Firewire and USB connectors - it has the most flexibility. Firewire, although technically slower than USB2 on paper (400Mbps vs 480Mbps), usually beats USB2 hands-down in practice. This is simply down to the way it handles continuous sustained data transfer between devices. (ie it will backup/copy large directories of camera files between your PC and the disk faster).
Don't worry about only having one Firewire port - Firewire devices can be "daisy-chained", whilst USB devices cannot and must either be plugged directly in to the computer or go via a USB concentrator/hub. BTW, USB hubs tend to slow things down a bit, and also generally need another power plug too (significant when you've upwards of 20 plugs under the desk
A couple of things to watch out for though:
1) As with USB ports, not all Firewire connections are born equal. My PC's built-in motherboard firewire ports (<6moths old) have a lower throughput than those on the 4 year old Adaptec USB2/Firewire400 PCI Combo card that I also use.
2) There is now a higher speed variant of Firewire called (unsurprisingly) Firewire 800. The connectors on FW800 are different to FW400 ones, but you can get a combined FW800-to-FW400 cable to plug in a FW800 drive to a FW400 system. The FW800 will drop to operating in a FW400 speed.
3) If a system is offering all three connections (USB2/FW400/FW800), then you will find that there will be 1x USB2, 1xFW400 and 2x FW800 connectors. You can still daisy chain using the FW800 connectors.
While I agree with Paul that things like NAS/SAN are great (disks plugged into a network and running at network speeds 100Mb/s or 1Gb/s - slower than direct connected external drives), the nice thing with devices like the MyBook and Maxtor One-touch etc is that they can be turned off and totally electrically isolated . (I never leave them running all-day every day - I live in a rural area and we have a c**p overhead power supply. Even using power filters/UPS/surge arrestors if there is any hint of thunderstorms in the area then the external disks are all unplugged from the mains and from the computer).
Those that offer "on-line" redundancy (eg RAID arrays) are great for the day-to-day working disks inside your computer, but I would rather use an external stand-alone drive as backup - they're cheaper and you can have two totally independant disks (kept in two independant locations for fire/theft security!) for backup usually for less cost than a single NAS/SAN unit.
FWIW, you may see some external disks such as the Lacie Bigdisk units which offer RAID0/1 and big disk space - These units actually have two or more disks inside a small enclosure. This can add to heat. I would avoid these and go for a single disk instead ~ typically the biggest of the single disks are running at about 500Gb at the moment.
Hope that helps and doesn't just add to the confusion!
Thanks for your advice.
Unfortunately £350+ for the terastation you mention,whilst perhaps an excellent storage option,is not financially an option at this time.
I'm just really looking for a 'cheapish' and cheerful option of freeing up space on my PC's internal drives,and more importantly,creating back-ups.
I'm aware of the added wear and tear of allowing the external drives to run when not being used,so I only plan on using them as and when necessary,keeping them switched off and/or disconnected at all other times.
I will be backing-up to DVD (possibly even twice) in addition to the hard drive.
Sean
Thanks for your input and for sharing your prefered method.
Nick
Many,many thanks indeed for taking the time to type such a detailed and thorough reply.
Your time and assistance is really appreciated
It hasn't added to the confusion at all,but has made all my various options,now crystal clear.
For the sake of an extra £16 I shall go for the 250gb USB/Firewire E-book as opposed to the USB only one.
Off to Dabs this very minute.
Many thanks,once again.
I currently have 4 Maxtor 300Gb and 4 Lacie 250Gb drives all of which are 7200 rpm (make sure you get fast spin speeds not 5400 rpm versions). All of them can be used as USB II or Firewire and come with cables for both.
Personally, I use Firewire 'cos my setup is geared around that (with Firewire hubs).
Frankly, you'd be pressed to find much difference in normal use between USB II and Firewire. More important (vastly more important) is the spin speed
Good luck
Barrie
The one I've just ordered is indeed a 7200 rpm unit and is also the USB/firewire version.