[chgolatin2]

Went to get an external HD, however the saleman ask me what type of computers I had at home and I stated Apple and PC so recommended for me to get an HD that would support both systems however, I was confused by all these Firewire, USB3 stuff... 

I was told that USB 3 are better, (Seagate Free Agent HD) faster etc...  Any input on this?  Thanks

[JDUBS]

USB 3 is faster than firewire.  Whether its "better" or not, than any other protocol, I'm not sure anyone knows yet.

-Jim

[planet10]

In practise i think Firewire 800 is faster than USB3. A Firewire drive has its own I/O processor. You'll only find USB 2 on a Mac -- they have taken Intel's lead and are prepping everyone to move over to Thinderbolt -- the 1st drives are hitting the shelves & way faster than either, and is a superset of both).

If you are using the drive as a music server you want the disk with the music to be on a different bus than the DAC, so if your DAC is on the USB bus, get a Firewire drive, if your DAC is Firewire get a USB drive.

The salesguy's recommendation of a multi-interface drive is a good one. I like the LaCie D2 with triple interface. Cost you a bit more, but worth it IMO.

dave

[wilsynet]

Can I ask what the intended use of the drive is?

And if for the purposes of storing music, what you the associated equipment might be?

Finally, what size of hard drive were you thinking and generally, what were you thinking in terms of budget?

[skunark]

Is there a thunderbolt drive that offers USB/FW as well?  Please link if you know of one.

One key advantage with FW and Thunderbolt is the fact that you can daisy chain a few devices only consuming one port on your computer (assuming you have the port).   I utilize one FW media drive and another FW TimeMachine drive which allows me to place both out of the way stringing one cable to the mac mini.  I do use my mac as a fileserver only. 

The key advantage for USB is that you will have at least one port on your computer. 

Unless your mac has a thunderbolt port, it's probably not worth the premium since HDDs won't last forever.    I would probably recommend a FW/USB combo drive either way, the premium for thunderbolt drives are still high so unless you are doing video editing, I would pass for now.

Speeds of the ports from slowest to fastest:  USB2 -> FW800 -> eSATA -> USB3.0 -> Thunderbolt.    For USB3.0 and Thunderbolt to hit their max throughput, look for raid0 drives.  Metric is probably only useful when moving large amounts of data.     All can easily playback video and audio.

Selecting a HDD can be a heated discussion.  I do highly recommend purchasing a brand that also manufactures the HDD.    In the past I've owned several lacie drives and have a huge dislike for them now for two reasons.  They tended to overheat and the power supplies always died.   Of course tread carefully with any manufacture, I've now sent in two seagate drives that have also failed, the key difference, seagate is addressing the problem, lacie offered to sell me a new power supply while under warrenty.

As for sharing a HDD between a mac and windows can be a bit tricky with the different filesystems, NTFS, FAT vs HFS.  Windows won't read the preferred filesystem for macs, HFS.   Windows 7 removed support for formatting FAT drives and requires another application (or command line), but Macs can read, write and format FAT filesystems.   Macs can read NTFS filesystems but not write.
FAT32 will also have limits on the file names and for some solutions there's a 2TB capacity limit and for others a 16TB capacity limit.     You can also just create a network share and copy the files from one computer to the next and not even care what filesystem you have selected. My mac mini will serve the files to windows, linux and mac computers in the house not to mention most streaming devices.   

[wilsynet]

Is there a thunderbolt drive that offers USB/FW as well?  Please link if you know of one.

This is really neat.  You do pay for the flexibility, but it's very flexible indeed and the solution performs well.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1165104/hands_on_with_the_seagate_goflex_thunderbolt_adapter.html

[wilsynet]

Yeah, I looked at the prices for Thunderbolt drives.  I agree, doesn't make a lot of sense unless you have very strong performance requirements.

To be frank, I'm perfectly happy with USB 2 and FireWire 800.  Storing and serving music or video through USB 2 is perfectly adequate.  But if USB 3 is only modestly more, sure.

If I were doing something more demanding, then it's a different story.

[planet10]

Is there a thunderbolt drive that offers USB/FW as well?  Please link if you know of one.

That will need to wait until i get the 'puter shop on Wed. Just got an email with the guys raving about the speed.

I do highly recommend purchasing a brand that also manufactures the HDD.    In the past I've owned several lacie drives and have a huge dislike for them now for two reasons.  They tended to overheat and the power supplies always died.

The opposite experience here.

dave

[skunark]

This is really neat.  You do pay for the flexibility, but it's very flexible indeed and the solution performs well.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1165104/hands_on_with_the_seagate_goflex_thunderbolt_adapter.html

Interesting, seems like it's not that much of a performance boost for their solution, it's significantly slower than the other thunderbolt drives.   http://www.anandtech.com/show/5759/hitachi-gtechnology-releases-graid-thunderbolt-storage-solution

[skunark]

That will need to wait until i get the 'puter shop on Wed. Just got an email with the guys raving about the speed.

The opposite experience here.

dave

Consider yourself lucky or perhaps Lacie has corrected the issue with recent models.  It's a pretty easy google to find hundreds of complaints about lacie and even youtube diy videos on how to repair the power supply....   

[Crimson]

Likewise with the LaCie PSs. Had two die on me (50% failure rate) but, fortunately, was able to get them replaced under warranty. Haven't purchased the brand since.

[planet10]

Consider yourself lucky or perhaps Lacie has corrected the issue with recent models.

Hundreds & hundreds thru the shop in the last mny years. A couple of my customers has issues early on they were resolved quickly.

dave

[chgolatin2]

Can I ask what the intended use of the drive is?

And if for the purposes of storing music, what you the associated equipment might be?

Finally, what size of hard drive were you thinking and generally, what were you thinking in terms of budget?

The drive would be used on either my pc or mac, storing music, files, videos etc.  My drive size would be a 1.5TB

Also, I will be using 1T for my security DVR home system

[simon wagstaff]

Any of them will be fast enough to play music off of, especially if you are using something like Decibel that allows you to use what RAM you have as a data storage buffer. I do second the comments about not buying too expensive of a drive. I have 3 drives that I use for storage and replace the oldest one every year. I think even three years is pushing the lifetime of a drive if you are storing something important on it, like music.

[planet10]

Likewise with the LaCie PSs. Had two die on me (50% failure rate) but, fortunately, was able to get them replaced under warranty. Haven't purchased the brand since.

I checked with the techs. They concur with your findings re reliability, with the exception of the D2 product (which ia all i have ever sold or used)

dave

[bunnyma357]

The opposite experience here.

dave

LaCie's have in the past had notoriously bad power supply issues - they may have eventually moved to a more reliable OEM, but for many years they left a lot of people in the lurch. 

I'm a video editor and I have about 12 LaCie drives and easily 2/3 of the power supplies have died - my preferred brand is currently the Hitachi G-Tech stuff, LaCie will no longer get any of my business.

[skunark]

I checked with the techs. They concur with your findings re reliability, with the exception of the D2 product (which ia all i have ever sold or used)

dave

D2 has been their main product line for many years which is the one with the horrendous history.  Bulk of the other lines are bus-powered.