Performance options of more hard drive capacity

[Jozey]

Hi,

I was wondering what was the fastest performer when increasing storage capacity for my mini now that i have a near redundant PC

Options:

Stuff more hard drives into old PC and SMB them to mini (My iTunes library is like this, 90GB)
Buy a Firewire expansion box
Buy a USB2 expansion box (i think this is slowest)
Buy some Network Attached Storage

I really want to understand which option is the fastest for file transfer and access. Note i currently access the net through my PC via the cat5e cable.

Thanks for thoughts.
J
[/list][/list]

[LouieMacGoo]

Your fastest option will be an external firewire drive. Connecting via ethernet (LAN), or USB wouldn't work fast enough for you. Firewire will provide you with a fast connection, direct transfer of files and a second bootable drive provided you get one with a chip set that supports it. Take a look through this forum there are a number of topics that talk about external firewire drives. Alot of good info here.

Good Luck!
_________________
13' Macbook 2.0ghz C2D w/2gb RAM and 120gb HD
G4 Mac Mini 1.42ghz w/1gb RAM, 80gb HD, SuperDrive, 160gb MiniStack
eMac 700mhz G4 PPC 1gb RAM 40gb HD, Combo drive
G3 iMac DV 400mhz 512mg RAM 40gb HD, SuperDrive
Follow me http://twitter.com/louiemacgoo

[jase]

It kinda depends what your priorities are.

If speed is the biggest issue, a firewire enclosure with a fast hard drive will probably give you the best performance. I just added one to my Mini, and it does run quite a bit quicker than the internal drive. USB seems to be a little slower than Firewire, but it's still adequate.

On the other hand, if speed isn't so important, adding hard drives to an existing pc and using SMB (or using a NAS box) might be nice. It wouldn't be as fast, but would keep your Mini setup sleek and quiet since the hard drive(s) wouldn't be sitting right next to the Mini. If noise or space is your biggest priority, this might be the better option.

[zimmerman]

I would go the FireWire route over USB.

http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html

[Jozey]

Thanks everyone. It sounds like FW is the leader from the responses. I just completed importing my Thunderbird mailboxes via my SMB link and it was indeed slowwww. Fine for itunes streaming though.

Interesting comment about FW being faster than the internal drive. I understand the interface was regular ATA100, but uses a 2.5" low rpm drive. I guess going FW gives me a faster drive over a theoretical 400mb/s link.

I'll trawl the forums. I like Seagate drives....

Thanks
J

[rcornia]

I hooked up a Maxtor 250GB external FireWire HD and it is much faster. It has the option to create a Bootable Startup Disk (which I use) and the system is much faster - probably 2-5 times faster on most tasks. The USB model is not bootable. I was considering spending around $100 on 1 Gig. of RAM, but, now I doubt I will because it is so much faster than before (although I'm a widget hog so the extra RAM might be nice). Anyway, another vote for FireWire.

[MacPredict.com]

[Jozey]