External hard drive with firewire

SATA around the year 2000, and it remains the most common connector for internal hard drives today. You can connect a SATA drive by installing it on a desktop. Alternatively, you can connect it externally via a SATA-to-USB adapter or an internal drive enclosure. eSATA: This standard was found on some external hard drives from around 2000 to 2010. Most new PCs don't have an eSATA port, so you'll need an eSATA-to-USB adapter. FireWire: This standard was favored by Apple from 1999 to 2008 and used by some external hard drives. Modern PCs will need a FireWire to USB adapter. USB: The most common standard for external devices, you may find USB on external hard drives from the late-90s to the present day. Some USB external hard drives use the USB Type-A connector, but others use the less standard Micro-B SuperSpeed connector (pictured below). Micro-B SuperSpeed connector.Yanik88 / Getty Images Connect the hard drive to a USB port on your PC (using an adapter, if necessary). Older, larger external hard drives may also need to be connected to external power. Wait for Windows to identify the hard drive. This process may take several moments. A notification will appear asking what you'd like to do with the hard drive. Select Open folder to view files. You can now browse files on the old hard drive as you would any external hard drive or USB thumb drive. How Do I Transfer Files From an Old Hard Drive to a New Computer? Once

For external hard drives in this question, I'm referring to traditional HDDs; the kind with spinning metal inside of them (no RAM or flash-based super-high-performance hardware):Is there a significant speed difference between USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 for external HDDs? And, while we're here, eSATA and FireWire 800? Sure you can just google the bus speed numbers, but can traditional HDDs even keep up with any of them? asked Jul 19, 2009 at 1:16 Traditional hard drives (7200 RPM) are much faster than the USB standard allows for. You can prove it by taking a decent hard drive and plugging it in natively, and testing it, and then testing it in a USB caddy.Since eSATA and Firewire (400/800) are both significantly quicker than USB, I'd be willing to bet they are reasonably close in speed to what sort of speeds you'd see from a natively plugged in drive. eSATA especially - since isn't it meant to be an external version of a native sata controller? answered Jul 19, 2009 at 1:30 EvilChookieEvilChookie4,5771 gold badge26 silver badges34 bronze badges 5 It's hardly scientific, but my experiences with Firewire 400, 800 and USB 2 on various Intel Macs (laptops and iMacs) is that FW400 is noticeably faster than USB 2, and FW800 is getting-on for internal drive speeds. Daily, I copy around various 16-25Gb files (virtual machines) and would always pick FW800 (or 400) over USB2. For a while I was regularly copying a 16Gb file from one FW800 to another (they were daisy-chained together) and it was just like copying between 2 internal hard drives.I appreciate that FW400 might be a different beast on Windows, of course. answered Jul 28, 2009 at 11:06 robsoftrobsoft6541 gold badge7 silver badges13 bronze badges I'm chiming in a bit late, but... the bus speeds that the various protocols are rated at are no good indication of the real speed you might expect. For example, USB has a lot of overhead (by design), and with most control chips I've come across USB 2.0 is actually no faster than Firewire 400 (no numbers at hand, hope you'll take it as anecdotal evidence from me...).A couple of years ago, USB 2.0 was in fact the slower of those two, due to the fact that it requires more CPU backing, but now that we have dual-core CPUs and fast internal buses everywhere, you won't find any difference anymore.For a

Forum: General DiscussionThis part of topic is old and might contain outdated or incorrect information Man, sorry for double psoting but i really need quick help. I need to get a second external hard drive. Problem is that my laptop won't let me hook up more than one HD to it simultaneously. Say for instance if my itunes music library is on an external & when i wanna update my ipod, i'm screwed. Now that i'm getting a second drive, I was wondering if getting one with firewire would solve this problem, & if not, is there a certain type of hard drive I should get. I saw one with a usb INPUT for plugging in any other usb device's you'd have. Posted Sat 16 Dec 06 @ 4:38 pm mainedjPRO InfinityMember since 2006 Do you need a second one, or just a bigger hd?You may have to get a fairly large one with firewire, and then use the usb port for your ipod.I could be wrong though. Posted Sat 16 Dec 06 @ 5:02 pm MantahoePRO InfinityMember since 2005 Man, I feel sooo stupid. My problem was that my laptop was assigning the same name to my hardrives, that's why they wouldn't work together. Thanks for your help though. Posted Sat 16 Dec 06 @ 5:12 pm kirk98380PRO InfinityMember since 2023 my laptop does that but only if i hook into a hub.....i run outta usb and firewire cuz i have an ext hd a usb cooler fan (which

Quick overview of realistic throughput you might expect, see the site of the S-ATA SIG. That's of course hardly independent data given that they defined the e-SATA standard, but I'd say they're actually quite optimistic about USB 2.0: their quoted 45MB/s is something I've never, ever seen in my own use - 32MB/s tops, really. Gareth19k15 gold badges59 silver badges69 bronze badges answered Jul 28, 2009 at 10:28 yungchinyungchin1511 silver badge3 bronze badges 1 Theoretically, Firewire 400 has a max speed of 400 Mbit/s and USB 2.0 has a max speed of 480 Mbit/s. However, actual usage speeds tend to differ a lot and it often depends on the external hard drive itself.USB has a much wider compatibility with external drives and computer, but most quality external hard drives and computers will support Firewire for years to come. answered Jul 19, 2009 at 2:37 Josh HuntJosh Hunt21.3k20 gold badges85 silver badges124 bronze badges 2 Firewire loves you, but some times you need USB. (Because people are cheap and buy cheap machines, you know).If you're buying a case/dock, I'd go for one with:FW 800 (It's 400-compatible, you just need a 400-800 cable)eSATA (But if you're on the Mac, none ship with eSATA ports)USB (Even my dog has USB and he's not a computer. Also, I don't have a dog)So you have the best of Firewire and eSATA, but you can still plug your drive to your 20th century friends' machines. (As long as you formatted it as FAT32, I suppose.)Yes it costs thrice the price of a USB-only case. You get what you pay for.Some real usage stories:I tried running backups both via USB and via FW400, and FW is decidedly faster. (Using SuperDuper)Where I work, we had some hard time trying to play full HD uncompressed videos from FW400. FW800 really shines here. If you plan to edit said videos, you're gonna need it.Sadly I never had the chance to use eSATA, but as pointed by others, it should perform similarly to SATA, which is great. answered Jul 31, 2009 at 3:12 kchkch2,2624 gold badges25 silver badges32 bronze badges From a users perspective I have found USB2 better than firewire as there are more devices available. For raw speed firewire 800 is excellent. I haven't used eSATA though, and I feel it will probably end up being THE standard. answered Jul 19, 2009 at 1:30 Bruce McLeodBruce McLeod5,8182 gold badges28

Computer and before you do anything else, you should back them up to CDs, DVDs, or an external hard drive. If you shoot RAW files or lots of pictures, transferring your pictures to an external hard drive is much, much faster than burning a CD or DVD. With a lifespan of 20–25 years, CDs and DVDs will eventually deteriorate, so hard drive storage is safer—but you should still have your pictures saved in two places because even a hard drive can crash. You don’t have to transfer files to a computer; you can hook up hard drives in tandem and transfer files between drives—but be sure you have the correct cables for connecting the drives, which could be FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 1.1 (if you’re very patient), or USB 2.0 (if you’re not).You may have noticed that I mentioned external hard drives (as opposed to internal hard drives). Why? Well, say your internal hard drive crashes. If it does, how would you be able to see your pictures and other data? If you have all your files saved on an external hard drive, all you have to do in the event of a computer crash is to unplug the external drive from your computer and plug it into another computer to see your files.Search and rescue Okay, it’s finally time to reveal my “magic trick” of saving/recovering the panic-stricken woman’s pictures. I worked the magic by using SanDisk RescuePro, an image-recovery program that comes on a CD with SanDisk Extreme cards. While the memory card was still in the card reader, I simply inserted the CD into the computer and followed the onscreen instructions. I always travel with that CD, as well as with ImageRecall 3 from FlashFixers, for just such emergencies. (Lexar offers Image Rescue software for its cards.) Manage and edit By the way, Photoshop CS2 was already loaded on the computer on which I was working. I used Adobe Bridge to view the woman’s RAW files. I find that Bridge is an excellent method for viewing all my files, RAW and JPEG files alike.If you shoot RAW files, you’ll need Photoshop CS2 (with the latest Camera Raw plug-in) and either your camera’s software (Canon’s Digital Photo Professional illustrated here) or another RAW program (such as Adobe Lightroom or Apple’s Aperture) to view, manage, and edit your pictures. You can also use programs such as Extensis Portfolio

Up too much of your hard drive space. An external drive is an additional storage space where you can store your files to free up important space for your internal drive.External hard drives are available in varying storage capacities, but all can be connected to a computer either by USB, eSATA, FireWire, or wirelessly through Bluetooth.Do I only need an external hard drive if my internal drive is full?An external drive can provide more benefits than you might imagine, and isn’t only useful when your internal drive is full. You can also use an external hard drive to:Make backups of your hard drive in case something happens to your computer: Computer crashes are an unfortunate fact of digital life, so make sure your important files are backed up on an external drive to ensure that important information is never permanently lost.Organize your files: This point is especially relevant if you’re a businessperson or creative professional. You can use an external hard drive to separate work files and creative files from your personal files. Your computer will be far better organized. And, besides, creative files are typically very large and take up a ton of space on your internal drive, so in many cases it’s better to store them on an external drive.Take files on-the-go: External hard drives are easy to transport, so they can provide you with a large amount of extra storage whenever and wherever you need it. External drives can prove very valuable for traveling professionals who need