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Macbook Pro Retina owners or soon to be owners beware of firewire!!
Hey all,
Just got my apple thunderbolt to firewire adaptor, and I am a little disappointed. It is running much slower in speed test then an mbp with firewire built in.MBPr disk speed test on OWC mercury 2tb drive, 46.7 MB/s Write, 31.2 read
MBP 13inch, 2011, same drive, 70.1 MB/s Write, 77.6 MB/s read.Repeated the same results with my G-raid mini set up in mirror.
What really sad is, on the macbook pro retina, I hooked up the usb 2.0 to the OWC and got 36.9 MB/s Write, 37.8 MB/s Read.
What is worst, is if I hook up my 7200 RPM laptop drive, and use my usb 3.0 attachment, 53.2 MB/s write/ 54.2 Read
and if I hook that same 7200 rpm drive up, using my seagate thunderbolt adaptor. its, 54.6/54.4 MB/s Write/Read
So it looks like that thunderbolt to firewire adaptor is just there to give you some flexibility, and retrieve media off the drive. But not nearly the speed horse it was. Not to mention the G-raid Mini can not be powered by the Tbolt to firewire adaptor alone. It needs a power source. But if you hook up the G-raid mini to any other normal firewire 800 port, it works fine without additional power.
Anyone know a good usb enclosure that does mirroring like the G-raid mini? (i use the mirror when i’m in the field for my af-100 footage)
Thanks,
Brooks Tomlinson
“I dream in 32bit float” -
17 Replies
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FW 400 or 800 tBolt to FW adaptor? Those speeds are below FW spec so I would expect a device that is sold to meet minimum spec. If it doesn’t then it should be replaced or refunded.
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The thunderbolt to FireWire adaptor by apple is FireWire 800. If you hook a normal hard drive up via sata you will get 60 to 70 mb/s read/write times. It’s a drive limitation, not FireWire limitation. You will not instantly get faster speeds because instead of sata you are using FireWire.
Besides, the adaptor is on 30 bucks. The only other fw to thunderbolt adaptor is like 250 bucks. I just want to inform the cow about what I found. That there is a speed hit with the adaptor. Which is common with adapters.
Brooks Tomlinson
“I dream in 32bit float” -
You report usb speed only slightly under the adaptor. If it isn’t reaching FW800 spec then it shouldn’t be sold as FW800.
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This is making my choice to go non-retina feel like a REALLY good choice right now. As I am flush with FW800 drives. And I mean FLUSH.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I don’t know about this….i have the maxed out smok’n Retina Display MBP 16 gigs ram max HD..hooked up to my caldigit VR Mini with Thunderbolt to Firewire adapater and it’s smok’n fast….
don’t know how to do an actual speed test (point me to one to download and I’ll do it) but no speed hit at all in fact it’s much faster than last year’s MBP model with all regular platter hard drives
Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852 -
All your drives have e-sata. Get a lacie sata thunderbolt hub and you will have 2 drives running SATA speeds for fast editing.
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you can get the black magic speed test at the apple app store free. just search “blackmagic disk speed test”
Brooks Tomlinson
“I dream in 32bit float” -
Andy can you test your soon and reply with status.
Almost on the same boat as you but I dont have a rMBP yet. -
There DOES seem to be a significant speed hit using the thunderbolt to fire-wire 800 adapter
Did test on OLD macbook pro got 43.2 write 63.7 read off Caldigit VR Mini
on New Retina display same test 36.9 write 24 read — that’s a big hit – although playing and editing video from that drive doesn’t seem slow
Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852 -
Thanks Andy.
Can this be also attributed to the OS version?
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