Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 25, 2003 8:48 AM |
gabb |
Sorry ppl this is a little off the the topic, but I thought u guys would be the best ppl to ask. I am thinking about adding a HD and maybe a DVD write, should I get a External firewire one ot get and ATA card and get internal versions of the HD/ DVD -R? PTP, Sonnet 800Mhz G4 800 Mb RAM ATI radeon MAC edition GABBY |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
June, 02, 2003 6:59 AM |
gabb |
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Thanks Paul. that gives me a lot of courage. I went to a PC show y'day they had Pioneer-105 for $188. I think I ma more comfortable with externals than internal, my unternal stuff is full right now so..... with FW I used to have freezes with Video capture after I put in a Sonnet G4 800 PCI card, my thinking is is either the card had a conflict with the Sonnet upgrade or the SOnnet took too much of the PCI slot power. Its was a FW/USB combo card, so i put in a separate FW card and it works like a champ. so maybe its ur FW card.. I was also maybe thinking if I go internal DVD writer, getting an ACARD SCSI to ATA converter cards and getting rid of my internal CD drive.. I am hesitant about the new FW 800 on our old machines I doublt if it will make much difference. since I should be buying a new machine by the end of this year I should be fine with FW 400 for now, hoping all new machines will come with DVD writers and FW 800. Thanks again |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
June, 02, 2003 2:07 AM |
paul_findley |
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I put a Pioneer DR-105 (branded Cendyne, $183 after Fry's rebate) in a USB2.0/Oxford911Firewire external box ($60 from computergeeks), and it does fine with DVD SP 1.5 and Toast 5.x. My thinking also was that the optical R/W speeds wouldn't tax the interface, so why not have the flexibility of an external, portable to both macs and PCs. I have had REALLY bad luck with hard disks on either USB or Firewire, PC or Mac. Write lockups, corruption, you name it. Maybe FW800 will be better. I noticed there was another post recently here, with similar problems. But no problems with the not-so-taxing CD or DVD burner on these interfaces. |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 31, 2003 7:04 PM |
gabb |
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I have Roxio Toast and I can get a copy of Apple's DVD pro 1.5, that should be good right? for external drives. gabby |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 31, 2003 7:27 AM |
terrancew_hod |
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The only disadvantage of getting an external DVD writer is that you'll miss out on the DVD program in the iLife suite. If you get an external, then make sure it comes with a burning package as well. But getting the internal means you'll be bumping up against the PCI bandwith on the PTP. All those cards (video, firewire, and an ATA card) just will suck the life out of that bus. I bought an internal DVD-R for the 8500, but I don't know whether it was the last apple update, it stopped writting disks, giving me buffer overrun errors. I finally moved it into another box...guess i lost patience with the set up. |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 31, 2003 7:24 AM |
gabb |
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Thanks a lot again Pbell. I got this External FW DVD writer for $ 228 so maybe I should get that. Basically I know my system will studder etc. but the thing is that I waiting for all the new stuff that Apple is going to come out with this Fall, until then I will keeep using my machine, naybe till the end of this year. anither thing is the Real Estate space, and external drive will take up space on my table so..... the reason i said ATA 133 was there is a SOnnet card, the trio with FW/USB and ATA 133, now my FW/ USB card is busted so I have to replace it anyway so why not spend a little more and get the sombo card (about $ 160), no may be not, I saw some FW/ USB cards for $50. If id do get an internal DVD writer I wil get rid of my existing CD or CD wriiter (i have both internal SCSI). yes My Adaptec 29160 card is pretty fast. Thanks again Pbell. |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 31, 2003 1:45 AM |
pbell3 |
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All the discussion in the world cannot speak to solving the dilemna formed by the desire for good peripherals versus the knowledge of an impenetrable blockage in overall performance. The fact is that while FW800 can move 100MB/sec, your databuss cannot. Also, with any drive available, FW400 and FW800 will have only minor differences in practice. Raid on the FW800 might see a useful increase in performance, but you'll never see it until you attach the FW800 card to a system buss that can move that much data. The 50Mhz databuss in you PTP won't ever be able see a noticable increase from the FW. There is another consideration. If you have a thruput limit at the databuss, then consider what happens to that buss when you attempt to feed a 5-6MB/sec DVD drive with a 30MB/sec hard drive. For one thing, simultaneous reads and writes are going to share the buss. Seems to me, no matter what you do, the buss is already maxed out and your disk-writing is going to studder. While this may not hurt the written disk, you'll never see maximum performance because the whole system will be choked in servicing the work. This means that the decision is a washout. Do what you want within your budget. But there is no practical way to optimize the performance for all the peripherals you want, let alone the stuff you already have. If you already have sufficient drive space with the existing drives, then there is no reason I can think of to go with ATA drives for any reason. Stick to your present HD system, it's already running the system as fast as anything available for your system. The only question that remains is whether you want to have DVD writer on FW (I'd go with 400) or whether you want to get a writer mounted internally (if you have a remaining open slot to mount it). For that you won't need a really fast ATA card. A simple ATA 33 or 66 card is sufficient. Get off as cheap as you can, because you CAN. You system let's you think cheap because more money will beat-up against your system buss until the cows come home. Sorry about that ! |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 30, 2003 11:39 PM |
gabb |
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I would stick with SCSI too but i want to get a DVD Writer, is there an internal SCSI DVD writer out there? |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 30, 2003 3:04 PM |
gabb |
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WOW! pbell that is a lot of info, good info, but the bottom line is, should i get Sonnet's internal trio card (FW/USB ATA/133) or an external FW drive? I actually want to get a DVD writer so I am trying to decide if it should be internal or external? I have a SCSI LVD 160 card with 2 LVD drives right now, in a PTP/ Sonnet 800 G4 machine. what about the new FW 800, is is worth it or should i stick to FW 400? My current FW/USB card is busted. Thanks ppl and thank u pbell gabby |
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RE: Internal ATA VS. External Firewire |
May, 30, 2003 11:35 AM |
pbell3 |
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Hi, this is a great question, but the answer is one of those good-this-way good-that- way answers. First we have to talk about hard drives as a speed device. In ATA drives, not one of them runs faster than about 40MB/sec (ignore the controller transfer speeds in the specsheets). Some of the SCSI-320 drives are getting close to 75MB/ sec, but the ATA drives are still quite slow (this includes the SATA varieties). This is because SCSI drives are much smarter that ATA controllers and arbitrate databuss information better, SCSI also caches instructions in spool registers, ATA type drives have never received this feature and still don't. But, in any case, the real limit is set by the number of actual sectors/track, the rotation speed, and the ability to read the next track ahead of demand in a smooth fashion, hence the speed limit of about 40MB/sec. This means that there is no intrinsic performance advantage between an internal interface and a external firewire interface (given that both ports can theoretically read the drive at its best performance). The only way to push a ATA port to its limit is by employing a hardware raid on a slower system or a good software raid on a fast computer. This causes the port to receive multiples of data which combine the performance of all drives in the chain. Now we get to DVD and CD performance. A 1X-DVD drive runs the spindle at roughly 6X-CD speeds or about 1MB/sec. This might seem slow but remember the muliple layers of media compression. By the time you get to a modern Apple 6X-DVD, the spindle is spinning at 5400rpm, and the media is running at 36X-CD speeds. Any faster than that and the plate begins to wobble too much. This means that at this speed the throughput of the drive is 5.4MB/sec, still well inside the performance curves of either the ATA or Firewire ports. Your main problem will not be performance limits at the drives or interfaces. The main problem is a basic rule of thumb. And that is that a drivebuss can manage about half the thruput of the clock speed of the databuss. While there is some realworld give and take, the fact is that a legacy system can't do better than about 25-30MB/sec thru the fastest drive port on the system, because of the 50Mhz buss of the average legacy system. This is one of the really good reasons for purchasing a new computer when you are able. Even the slowest modern Apple product has a system buss at 100Mhz, which allows drive thruput in the neighborhood of 50-60MB/sec/port. The best databuss Apple builds can approach 100MB/sec/port. That's why people buy this new stuff (wish I could ). This message is the truth without the hoopla. Don't believe hype from idiot sources. |
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