• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  USB vs Firewire

  Posted by Marc Ligon on April 24, 2008 at 2:00 am

  Any feedback on USB external drive versus Firewire external drive running FCP 5.0. Which is faster connection?

  Paul Dickin replied 18 years, 4 months ago 5 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Russell Lasson

  April 24, 2008 at 2:02 am

  On a Mac:

  USB 2 = 20-35MB/sec (depending on the position of the moon)
  Firewire400 = 30-40MB/sec
  Firewire800 = 40-80MB/sec (depending on the drive)

  -Russ

  Russell Lasson
  Kaleidoscope Pictures
  Provo, UT
• 

  David Roth weiss

  April 24, 2008 at 5:33 am

  However, USB does not have the sustained throughput that firewire has and which is necessary for use a media drive.

  David Roth Weiss
  Director/Editor
  David Weiss Productions, Inc.
  Los Angeles

  POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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• 

  Walter Biscardi

  April 24, 2008 at 9:19 am

  USB is not recommended for video editing. It simply does not have enough sustained data throughput for editing. It has high burst speeds, but you need constant high data speeds.

  Firewire 400 is the minimum speed throughput for video editing.

  Walter Biscardi, Jr.
  Biscardi Creative Media
  HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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• 

  Paul Dickin

  April 24, 2008 at 10:19 am

  [Russell Lasson] “USB 2 = 20-35MB/sec (depending on the position of the moon)”
  Hi
  Is that a test result on a recent Mac?
  I only get half that for USB 2 (9-12MBytes/sec) on older RevA/RevB G5 2GHz Macs, using the AJA data rate utility.

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