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firewire hard drives

post #1 of 13
5/17/05 at 4:16pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,

So I just got around to plugging my LaCie d2 250 gig hard drive into my S170. I tried with firewire and nothing happens. I tried with USB and the hard drive turns on and mounts just fine. But USB is sloooooooooooooooooooow. I want to use the firewire!

So I went and looked at the FAQ on the support section of LaCie's website and see this:

Quote:
Why won't my FireWire device work correctly when connected to a Sony VAIO laptop, when it has a S200 ILINK port instead of a S400 ILINK port?

The S200 port is designed for cameras and other non-mass storage devices. Full mass storage support will ONLY work with the S400 port on the VAIO. This is not an upgradable item. Contact Sony for compatibility questions.
WTF!?! Are you kidding me? I can't use the firewire port on my laptop for mass storage? They must be joking, right? Anyone? PLEASE!

-Aaron
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post #2 of 13
5/17/05 at 4:28pm
Wow!!! That's good to know. I was thinking of getting and external USB hard drive for my S270. Does anyone know if the Maxtor one touch USB has the same interface problem? Also, because I'm a bit of a noobie, how does one do benchmark testing, and what exactly is it for?

Thanks.
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post #3 of 13
5/19/05 at 8:22pm
Hey Guys....... You dont want to use a 1394 firewire drive.....

USB 2.0 spec is 480 mbs and firewire only 400 mbs.
If your having a speed problem you may still be using USB 1.0 which IS SLOW......

I recently bought a FIRELITE 80 Gigabyte USB portable hard drive that fits in my shirt pocket..... NO Power Supply Adapter Required (it's powered from the USB port) ... Only one thin cable between the Firelite and the Laptop... No Software to load either... of course only win XP supports usb 2.0 directly... If you are using any other version of windows you will need to update your OS to accomodate usb 2.0.....
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post #4 of 13
5/19/05 at 10:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by thehappyman
Hey Guys....... You dont want to use a 1394 firewire drive.....

USB 2.0 spec is 480 mbs and firewire only 400 mbs.
If your having a speed problem you may still be using USB 1.0 which IS SLOW......
You need to get your facts straight. The 480mbps of USB 2.0 and 400mbps of Firewire are just maximum throughput, not sustained throughput. Firewire's sustained thoughput beats USB 2.0, and it uses less CPU cycle too.

http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm
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post #5 of 13
5/19/05 at 10:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FS70B
You need to get your facts straight. The 480mbps of USB 2.0 and 400mbps of Firewire are just maximum throughput, not sustained throughput. Firewire's sustained thoughput beats USB 2.0, and it uses less CPU cycle too.

http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm
From experience, I can say that firewire is definately faster. but not blazingly so. perhaps 30%. Im holding a 160GB generic external hard drive as we speak, the firewire from my desktop takes about 10 minutes to load my music...the usb 2.0 to my vaio takes maybe 12-14 minutes.

that said.... if you have the cash, BUY THE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. I've never used that little 80gb thehappyman was talking about, but i think thats gonna be my next buy. as it is, i have to borrow my friend's drive to transfer large amounts of data from computer to computer... which i have to do often. They are also excellent for backing up large amounts of data *cough* mysql *cough*

it is pretty sh1tty that sony didnt give you a real firewire though.... their product is sound overall, i love my vaio, but they seem to be seriously lacking in common sense. I have the S400 on my week old vaio...apparently enough people complained...now we just need to work on getting a driver disk
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post #6 of 13
5/19/05 at 11:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FS70B
You need to get your facts straight. The 480mbps of USB 2.0 and 400mbps of Firewire are just maximum throughput, not sustained throughput. Firewire's sustained thoughput beats USB 2.0, and it uses less CPU cycle too.

http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm
The real "throughput" of any interface (1394, USB 2.0) depends on many factors especially the "device" you are interfacing to... - the USB 2.0 is capable of being faster....

And what is wrong with Sony's 1394 interface ??????

Yes, you will love the Firelite USB Dive.... Mine is 80 gigs but they are already selly one with 100 gig and 120 is next..... And, it fits in your shirt pocket.... And NO POWER ADAPTER.....
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post #7 of 13
5/20/05 at 2:05am
Capable of being faster, yes, but remember that USB is a shared bus, where as Firewire is a chain.

You have another USB device on the same bus and you drag your HDD transfer rates into the gutter (relatively speaking).

Also note that Firewire was designed for high-speed transfers between two devices, USB was designed as a more generic information transfer situation.
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post #8 of 13
5/20/05 at 8:05pm
Well, it is faster for me so far.... I have a USB Camera connection, a USB external Keyboard connection, and a USB Firelite Drive Connection..... I have no external devices that offer or have a 1394 port option....... Except for a Sony Digital Camcorder which I record movies onto my hard drive with......

And the USB supplies Power to it's devices as well..... And it's so "Plug and Play"...... Well you wont change my mind... I'm a USB fan forever......
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post #9 of 13
5/20/05 at 8:31pm
Thread Starter 
In my experience, firewire is faster.

Tom8658: is your week old Vaio an S series? Do you know any way that I can check to see if I have S200 or S400? Maybe the issue with using firewire with my hard drive is something more obscure/fixable.

Things could be worse than USB 2.0 but its still pretty disappointing to find out that my firewire port is crippled. The LaCie d2 does have a firewire800 port. Does anyone know if we might see PC Card adapters for fw800 on PC sometime?

-Aaron
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post #10 of 13
5/20/05 at 11:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron4281
In my experience, firewire is faster.

Tom8658: is your week old Vaio an S series? Do you know any way that I can check to see if I have S200 or S400? Maybe the issue with using firewire with my hard drive is something more obscure/fixable.

Things could be worse than USB 2.0 but its still pretty disappointing to find out that my firewire port is crippled. The LaCie d2 does have a firewire800 port. Does anyone know if we might see PC Card adapters for fw800 on PC sometime?

-Aaron
No, my "weak old VAIO" is a brand new Sony VAIO "A Series" Model A600 2.13 Ghz Pentium M770, 533 Mhhz fsb, with 2 gigs of DDR2 Sdram, a 5400 rpm SATA 100 Meg Drive and a dual layer DVD Recorder/Player with the 17 Inch Fantastic Xbrite ( Best there is) 1920 x 1200 WUXGA LCD and X600 128 meg Video Card..

I have played with both 1394 and USB 2.0 and I havent even used my firewire port yet.... (since I have three powered USB 2.0 ports......) Sorry to hear that your 1394 fw port is "crippled".... Dont you have any USB 2.0 ports ??? Most all new Hardware "add-ons" interface via USB 2.0....
I am sure You will solve this problem......
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post #11 of 13
5/21/05 at 9:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thehappyman
The real "throughput" of any interface (1394, USB 2.0) depends on many factors especially the "device" you are interfacing to... - the USB 2.0 is capable of being faster....
Sorry to burst your bubble here, you won't find any USB2.0 HDD that can go faster than 400mbps (1394a limit).


Quote:
Originally Posted by thehappyman
Well, it is faster for me so far.... I have a USB Camera connection, a USB external Keyboard connection, and a USB Firelite Drive Connection..... I have no external devices that offer or have a 1394 port option....... Except for a Sony Digital Camcorder which I record movies onto my hard drive with......

And the USB supplies Power to it's devices as well..... And it's so "Plug and Play"...... Well you wont change my mind... I'm a USB fan forever......
Noone here tried to change you from a USB fan, we just want to stop you from spreading lies about USB2.0 HDD is faster than firewire ones.
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post #12 of 13
5/21/05 at 9:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron4281
In my experience, firewire is faster.

Things could be worse than USB 2.0 but its still pretty disappointing to find out that my firewire port is crippled. The LaCie d2 does have a firewire800 port. Does anyone know if we might see PC Card adapters for fw800 on PC sometime?

-Aaron
If you google on "pccard 1394b", you can find some pccard fw800.
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post #13 of 13
5/21/05 at 9:25pm
My s360 has an s400 firewire port. I hooked up my external firewire hard drive and it works great. My drive has both firewire and usb 2.0, but I have not tested it with the usb yet. Generally I find that firewire hookup for my hard drives are faster than using the USB 2.0. Although a USB 2.0 hard drive is backward compatable to USB 1.0 I have never had much luck using it on a larger external drive, but I have a 5 gig little drive that I did get to work on USB 1.0, but it was verrry verrry slow transfer. In a pinch, you could get by if you had no other choice.

If your computer only has USB 1.0 and the s200 firewire and you want to hook up an external hard drive, you could get a USB 2.0 or firewire plug in card for your notebook. They are not very expensive and would solve your problem of slow transfers.
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