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Speed/Quality for USB 3.0/2.0 External HDD on a 2006 Macbook Pro

Continental_OpContinental_Op Registered User regular
edited August 2012 in Help / Advice Forum
So I've got a 1st generation Intel based Macbook pro running Snow Leopard. I've got two USB 2.0 ports and a firewire port. I've been using a 250GB Western Digital external for my music/podcasts, and file backup since 2006, but it's finally getting close to full and I'm going to be putting a lot more stuff on there in the coming year so more space is needed.

My questions are: 1How is a USB 2.0 connection for sound quality compared to firewire?
2. How do the new Western Digital externals stack up?
3. Should I go with a desktop or portable?
4. Is it possible to go too big in storage and rise the risk of the drive failing?

XBL - TeenageHead
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Posts

  • EsseeEssee The pinkest of hair. Victoria, BCRegistered User regular
    Regarding #1: Firewire is faster than USB 2.0 for sure, but I've never had any issues streaming music via USB either, even on my little netbook. Granted, I don't store my music in lossless format, but I don't think the difference in filesize would really be enough to make a difference. I assume this is what you're asking about regarding sound quality?

  • Continental_OpContinental_Op Registered User regular
    Essee wrote: »
    Regarding #1: Firewire is faster than USB 2.0 for sure, but I've never had any issues streaming music via USB either, even on my little netbook. Granted, I don't store my music in lossless format, but I don't think the difference in filesize would really be enough to make a difference. I assume this is what you're asking about regarding sound quality?

    Yeah, my regular music collection is too big to fit on my internal HDD and with podcast libraries going back a couple years it's definitely close to full. Thanks!

    XBL - TeenageHead
  • EsseeEssee The pinkest of hair. Victoria, BCRegistered User regular
    Oh yeah, I guess I can also say regarding the "desktop/portable" question that if you only have two USB ports, I think most (fast) portable drives that use USB would be using one port for data, one port for power, so you wouldn't be able to plug anything else in... so you might want a desktop drive. Via Firewire, from a bit of googling, it might be possible to power the drive straight from the Firewire port, though. Some manufacturers still use external power despite that, or maybe because their drive supports both USB and Firewire so the USB mode needs that extra power to use only one port.

  • EggyToastEggyToast Jersey CityRegistered User regular
    The connection won't affect "quality" of the music, especially for playback. Using a slower hard drive/connection and overworking the bandwidth may introduce stuttering, but it won't degrade the audio quality itself.

    As for the preferred format, although I'm a supporter of FireWire, it's moving towards obsolescence. I wouldn't invest any money into it at this point, since it's more expensive and the quality difference isn't significant for most uses.

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  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Yeah, the connection won't affect the quality. Every music player pre-buffers the file, adjusting for the data rate that it's actually getting. USB2 should be fine.

    As for size of drives they're all basically equally ready to fail. The cheaper ones will have a slower RPM on mechanical drives.

  • Continental_OpContinental_Op Registered User regular
    Ok. So it sounds like USB will be fine, and I've decided to roll with the desktop version (ten dollars more for a whole terabyte!), but now my question is this little dilemma in the product description:
    Compatibility
    Formatted NTFS
    Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7
    Mac OS® X Leopard®, Snow Leopard™ (requires reformatting and will work in USB 2.0 mode)
    Note: Compatibility may vary depending on user’s hardware configuration and operating system.

    I've got a 2006 Macbook Pro that I just put Snow Leopard on it (I know, I know, Mountain Lion just came out, but the parents got the family license and I never got around to it).

    With the reformatting, will it only be able to work with Macs or if I get a PC netbook or something in a year will I be able to use the same drive?

    XBL - TeenageHead
  • EggyToastEggyToast Jersey CityRegistered User regular
    It's formatted to NTFS, which is why it requires a reformat. That's all. You have a couple formatting options that will work for you, depending on how you feel about partitions.

    || Flickr — || PSN: EggyToast
  • Continental_OpContinental_Op Registered User regular
    edited August 2012
    I have no feelings on partitions (they can make it run faster, right?), but that's kind of above my skill set right now.

    Edit: Thanks for all the help folks! I went with a 1TB My Passport by Western Digital, reviews on the quality were much better and 1TB is still 4x the space I have now.

    Thread can be locked/closed now.

    Continental_Op on
    XBL - TeenageHead
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