How fast is external HD with USB 2 ???

[TexasGuy]

I am thinking of getting an external enclosure for one of my PATA HDs.

How fast with USB2 will it transfer the information back and forth (real life performance)?

[SeeMoreDigital]

I am thinking of getting an external enclosure for one of my PATA HDs.

How fast with USB2 will it transfer the information back and forth (real life performance)?I'm using an external 250GB USB2 HDD connected to my PC which is in-turn serving an Zensonic Z500 "high-definition network DVD media player"

I've been able to stream high-def encodes at up-to 25Mbps (the highest bit-rate I have) without any issues at all :)

[CWR03]

How fast with USB2 will it transfer the information back and forth (real life performance)?
USB 2.0 transfer speeds are faster than either EIDE or SATA, so transfer speeds will only be limited by the ability of the drive. I bought a really cheap external enclosure for an extra drive I had lying around, and it outperforms any of the internals.

[SeeMoreDigital]

USB 2.0 transfer speeds are faster than either EIDE or SATA, so transfer speeds will only be limited by the ability of the drive. I bought a really cheap external enclosure for an extra drive I had lying around, and it outperforms any of the internals.How fast are EIDE and SATA connections?

Is there a comp list of all the different types of connections?

[CWR03]

If I remember correctly, EIDE is 100 MB/s, SATA is 150 MB/s, USB 2.0 is 450 MB/s.

[[DSL]Sensenman]

IDE is either 66/100/133 MB/s and USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps, which is around 60 MB/s.

[CWR03]

I was only off by 8 (or a factor thereof).

[communist]

Still hdds enclosed in USB cases are just ordinary IDE drives and hence will never be faster just because there is now a IDE/USB 'translation'.
Also thats USB 2.0's theoretical transfer rate - its not really something you'll get in reality and from I have 'heard' due to overhead and all its still slower in reality than 1394 ("Firewire").

[SeeMoreDigital]

Still hdds enclosed in USB cases are just ordinary IDE drives and hence will never be faster just because there is now a IDE/USB 'translation'.
Also thats USB 2.0's theoretical transfer rate - its not really something you'll get in reality and from I have 'heard' due to overhead and all its still slower in reality than 1394 ("Firewire").Indeed... this has been my observation too!

My external LG CD/DVD burner seems far happier connected via FireWire than via USB2 :)

[Mug Funky]

i benchmarked my portable drive (both 1394 and USB 2.0) on a good port (these things can be finicky and not like external hubs, but that could be because i got a crappy one) at max USB 2.0 and max 1394 speeds respectively.

if you've got a steady connection and a not-very-fragmented drive you can even capture uncompressed onto one of these. capturing DV is very stable (it's only 25mbps after all).

the main problem with these things is stability, but if you get a decent brand (not the no-name crap i got) you'll not have problems there either.

see if you can get one with firewire 800 support. LaCie and Big Medea drives are good examples, but very expensive. these have a speed advantage because they use 2 drives in a RAID 0, which gives nearly double the speed of the individual disks.

[TCrowe]

When dealing with USB2, enclosures are a big factor but also the USB implementation on the actual motherboard. Example, Asus has a number of motherboards with numerous USB2 problems. Just another thing to keep in mind, or get a USB2 card.

I recently got a NexStar 3.5" enclosure but my new 300 GB Seagate did not take well being placed in it. Ended up putting an older 60 GB Western Digital and it works like a charm. Also, recently bought an NSpire 5.25" enclosure for a LiteOne DVD-RW, works great but the drive sucks. As for Fireware Vs. USB2 tried both connections I saw 0 advantage of one or the other when it came to copying data.