Transfer speed comparison

[sbaechler]

I did a small test yesterday copying a full mag (7.3GB) to my computer using different connection types and operating systems. The computer used was a Quad-Core PC with 3Ghz and 4GB Ram. The target drive was a RAID-0 (just used for the test). The RAID was formatted NTFS for Windows and Apple HFS+ for OSX tests.

Since there is no option to draw a table here I attached the results as an image:


I don't have a FW800 interface but those results would be very interesting as well. I also want to point out that although OSX is officially not supported the USB transfer is quite a bit faster than under Windows.
Fire Wire is fastest under Vista. 20 seconds faster than Windows Server 2003 while the USB transfer is about the same speed.
The SATA CF reader unfortunately didn't work under Windows so I only have the speed for OSX.
I think you can get a bit more speed out of the transfer if you format your hard drive using a GUID partition table instead of MBR. Vista and 2003 support this feature.

[Noah Kadner]

It's not fair to include OS X without FW800. USB-2 is typically quite a bit slower on Mac than FW800. :weight_lift:

-Noah

[AndrewG]

Interesting results... I'm interested in hearing more stats like these..

In particular I'm interested in how much bandwidth is used to stream the different sized reference quicktime movies... anyone?

Also, how much different CPU amount does it use to process the different sized quicktime reference movies?

[Bob Rudis]

Is there a cable available to patch from the sata connector on the Red drive (lemo) to Sonnet's Tempo™ SATA ExpressCard/34.

This would be mean quick transfers. The Sonnet's Tempo™ SATA ExpressCard/34 has two ports so we could connect our backup drives via sata as well.

[Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso]

WHat and where is the red drive sata connection????

[Jason Diamond]

usb2 is only 480 while fw800 is well, 800

did you make an esata cable?

[Jason Diamond]

its the lemo connector
the RED drive lemo has power and esata under the lemo.
bu as yet theres been no real way to access it without hacking together a cable and no one has posted a pinout of any succesful transfers.

[Jeff Deveraux]

WHat and where is the red drive sata connection????

The LEMO connection is SATA. Sbaechler had a LEMO to SATA cable made for him because he does not have a FW800 port on his station (I assume). According to his specs, it seems to match what FW800 does on my machine (2.8 8-core mac). Once you get beyond FW400/USB2 you loose your bottleneck and then it's a matter or drive speed. In other words, FW800 has more than enough bandwidth to keep up with the RED drive and an SATA to LEMO connector is not needed.

[Jason Diamond]

but it would make a difference if you were xferring to an esata under the same path yes? or would that bottleneck the esata bus.

[Jeff Deveraux]

but it would make a difference if you were xferring to an esata under the same path yes? or would that bottleneck the esata bus.

Interesting question. I don't know.
One way to find out would be to hook up two esata drives to your computer and compare the speed of writing to one disk vs. writing to one disk and reading to the other disk. None the less, you will not exceed the speed of the drive(s).
I actually don't know a lot about SATA. I don't own one yet.