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    Does such a Hard Drive exist?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by armen, Feb 26, 2008.

  1. armen

    armen Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi,

    I've been looking for an external hard drive which has an ethernet port for network access, and a firewire port for those times when I want to transfer large files as fast as possible. Does such a thing exist?
    Am I wrong in thinking wireless data transfer will be nowhere near as fast as firewire?

    For reference, I'm using a MBP, but my wife uses a Dell.
     
  2. jin07

    jin07 Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    I've heard of external HDs with firewire, there's quite a few on newegg. http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=414&Tpk=External+Hard+Drive

    Go to the left menu and under Interface click more. Check out the options with both USB and firewire (IEEE 1394a or IEEE 1394b). If it has firewire, it usually also has USB.

    About an external with an ethernet port, never heard of one. Part of the reason is that no really uses an external HD to connect to the internet. Secondly, USB 2.0 and firewire are both MUCH faster. Ethernet is 100 Mbps, USB 2.0 480 Mbps, Firewire IEEE 1394a is 400 Mbps (though in some tests it out performs USB 2.0), and Firewire IEEE 1394b is 800 Mbps.

    Transferring over a wireless network will be much slower than with USB 2.0 or firewire.
     
  3. stealthsniper96

    stealthsniper96 What Was I Thinkin'?

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    I would think there is a way to connect a drive to the network (wired). And although the numbers dont add up, the speeds are as follows: Firewire 800 > Firewire 400 > USB 2.0. You have a MPB, so I reccomend a drive that has Firewire 800 & USB 2.0. Look at the Mybooks (made by wester digital). I have a 500 gig one and its really nice.
     
  4. thejinx0r

    thejinx0r Notebook Guru

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  5. rsly33

    rsly33 Notebook Consultant

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    There are plenty of drives that have those requirements - either a NAS drive or a home server

    Western Digital has a MyBook NAS drive. Look around - there are plenty of options