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    Firewire 800 or esata?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Jedimonkey27, Jul 9, 2007.

  1. Jedimonkey27

    Jedimonkey27 Newbie

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    Hi everyone! I just purchased a new macbook pro a few weeks ago and I am loving it. The only problem is that I got the stock model with the 120gb hd and I am feeling kind of restricted so I have been shopping around for an external hd. The question I have is whether I should go with a firewire 800 drive or esata. Right now I can get a WD Mybook Premium with USB 2.0 and esata for $150 or a WD Mybook Pro with USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 and 800 for $193. I would go with the esata except the macbook pro doesn't have an esata port so I would have to buy an expresscard which I can't find for less than $70.

    So which option should I go with? I could order the esata one and save up for the expresscard later or just get the firewire 800 one now. I will be using this for video editing and I hope to install games on it in bootcamp. Thanks for your help!
     
    Jedimonkey27, Jul 9, 2007
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  2. thegsrguy

    thegsrguy Notebook Deity

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    FireWire 800 is plenty fast, I wouldn't bother with an eSATA adapter card and all that garbage, it just adds cost for only marginally better performance.

    Hell, a cheap FireWire 400 external case + HD of your choice is pretty fast (20MB/sec+).
     
    thegsrguy, Jul 9, 2007
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  3. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I'm not sure about FW800, but eSata can easily push 50MB/s...and ExpressCard eSata can hit 70MB/s without a problem.

    Honestly, it only matters if you do a LOT of data transfer with large files and don't have the time to spare.
     
    Greg, Jul 9, 2007
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  4. lupin..the..3rd

    lupin..the..3rd Notebook Evangelist

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    I'd go with the Firewire 800. It's already built in for you so you won't have to mess with ExpressCards. Plus Firewire is an isochronous protocol - perfect for audio/video editing. Further, you can daisy-chain up to 63 Firewire devices together. Can't do that with eSATA.

    FW800 can deliver about 75 MB/s real world throughput, so more than enough for any drive you'll be using. Heck, I'm using FW400 and I get a consistent 38 MB/s.

    You do NOT want to try a/v editing on a USB drive so don't even think about going that route! (USB2 can only deliver somewhere in the mid 20's for MB/s throughput).

    If you're new the audio/video editing world, you'll soon see that Firewire is the industry standard, and with good reason.

    Just my 2 cents.
     
    lupin..the..3rd, Jul 9, 2007
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  5. dietcokefiend

    dietcokefiend DietGreenTeaFiend

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    Normally I would say eSata, but you have FW800 built into your laptop, so go with that.
     
    dietcokefiend, Jul 9, 2007
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