Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Firewire External Hard Drive (without USB).

by Sophia19 Aug 18, 2007 10:08PM PDT

Hello again folks,

I've been scouring the web for an external firewire hard drive and this one seems to offer the most for the least money...

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(6235)LaCie-250GB-7200rpm-External-FWire-Hard-Drive.aspx

However, it doesn't also have a USB input, so I'm wondering whether there're any disadvantages in having an external hard drive that's Firewire-enabled but not also USB-enabled. A friend mentioned how USB connections can't transfer anywhere near as much information between drives as Firewire connections and that it'd be no problem at all in this respect, but I want to put this one to you guys before making a final decision.

Thanks,

Sophia Happy

Discussion is locked

6 Posts
- Collapse + Expand Details
- Collapse -
For a PC or MAC ?
by VAPCMD Aug 19, 2007 1:10AM PDT

If MAC....will you be using with 'other' PCs?

- Collapse -
Re: Question.
by Sophia19 Aug 19, 2007 2:42AM PDT

I have a PC, so I'll just be connecting the external drive via the Firewire port in the back of the original hard drive tower.

- Collapse -
If it were mine...I'd want an external HDD with more than
by VAPCMD Aug 19, 2007 12:02PM PDT

just Firewire because you never know what you may want to transfer data to and not many PCs have FW compared to those that have USB2.0.

If only one interface...go with USB 2.0.

VAPCMD

- Collapse -
I wouldn't.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Aug 19, 2007 4:45AM PDT

Firewire on the PC is "iffy." Microsoft never bought fully into firewire for storage and I've helped too many recover data off such a connected drive.

Try this.

PC = USB 2.0.
Mac = Firewire.
Linux = Your choice.

Bob

- Collapse -
Update and Objective.
by Sophia19 Sep 10, 2007 10:43PM PDT

Thanks for the advice thus far, folks. The primary reason for purchasing the external hard drive's to enable me enough space to edit a ninety-minute film using Adobe Premiere 7.0 and export that film back onto the original hard drive as an AVI so as to burn DVD copies with either Sonic or Nero. I'm unsure whether USB2.0 would facilitate the latter transfer as I've been told more than say 4GB's too much data for it to handle, so, if this is true, I'll definitely require a Firewire-enabled external drive. This is the latest one I'm checking out...

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(17695)Freecom-MobileDrive-Pro-25-120GB-USB20-Firewire.aspx

Please tell me what you think of it given my outlined objective. Microdirect's the only UK-based site I'm aware of for external drives. Can you recommend any other stores/sites to visit?

Also, I'm trying to fathom out how I'll go about the editing considering my main hard drive has only one Firewire port. Capturing the digital footage from a camera into Adobe requires a Firewire, but, if I'm saving the project on an external hard-drive, surely I'll require the external drive to be connected too. I'd be very grateful if anyone could offer their thoughts on how's best to go about this.

Thankyou :&gtWink

- Collapse -
This works here.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Sep 11, 2007 12:51AM PDT

I have some 500GB drive on USB 2.0 and files exceed 4GB. I'm unsure what issue you are writing about here but the old 4GB barrier was due to FAT32 formatting of hard disk which many drives arrive in.

You need to convert it to NTFS or just start over and the 4GB file size limit vanishes.

Bob

Back to Storage forum

CNET Forums

Operating Systems
Software
Electronics & Gadgets
Hardware
Tablets & Mobile Devices
General Help
Brand Forums
Roadshow Autos
Off Topic

Other Forums

Forum Info