Copy speeds and odd effects

[Les.]

Today I updated my shuttle (SN78SH7) to latest Linux Mint 19.2 (Tara).

Obviously, beforehand I copied all my docs etc to backup. I have two systems.

An old La Cie unit containing a 250GB IDE drive and connected by firewire. The shuttle has a 6 pin rear panel and front panel mini 4 pin. I use the rear. I was under the impression that Firewire was old hat, redundant now even.

My second system is a recently purchased drive box containing a SATA drive and a USB3 interface. The shuttle only has USB2.

Anyway, the firewire copied it all pretty quickly, with no errors or questions. I later checked the download rate was in the range 35 to 60MB/sec.

The USB/SATA system was SLOWER (around 18 to 30 MB/sec.) and it kept getting stuck. It found two files with same name (stupid me), different sizes, and wanted to overwrite one with the other, or “skip”. It also had problems with some downloaded web pages. These are saved in linux as a folder, plus a number of files for each page. The only viable option being to skip. OK, I can understand the duplicates thing, but why not copy a web page?

Any comments on the different speeds, and different behaviours?

Les.

Edited to sort the title out. PM.

[Dave Rice]

IT is littered with technology that still works but has been replaced by something better – or more popular. Firewire (IEEE 1394) was an Apple / Sony project. The same sort of thing is going on now with Thunderbolt and USB 3 with Apple again favouring the least popular.

It’s not just about transfer speeds, there’s also sorts of stuff about cable lengths and voltages etc. too.  Sony called it iLink, had different connectors and used it connect cameras to storage. Apple only provided low voltage support from the Macbooks. So IEEE 1394 wasn’t exactly plug and play.

Apple intended Firewire to replace the SCSI bus, USB was always just about connecting peripherals and replacing the serial and parallel ports. I suspect USB was just easier & cheaper to implement. Things like printers just don’t need massive bandwidth.

Why (your flavour of?) Linux treats the files differently I have not a clue.

[Les.]

Oh dear, my reply just disappeared in a “Forbidden operation”, error 403??)

I was trying to show how the web pages were saved, it must have been construed as a virus or similar.

Anyway, thanks for explanations Dave. I used to use SCSI a lot, as it was discarded by customers, I hoovered up the stuff. A high end card, multi-way small connector cables and quite a few good drives. Once I got the IDs sorted in my head, all straightforward. SCSI CD reader included.

I had two drives, with a switch on the front panel which allowed me to change an ID, so I could choose which drive to boot from, useful when I was dipping my toes into Linux.

If I set BIOS correctly, can I boot from a drive in the 1394 box?

Cheers, Les.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve never seen it, but then never really looked for it.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

https://www.macworld.com/article/1145224/firewire-usb.html

The above link shows that firewire is faster or much faster than USB 2 depending on whether you have firewire 400 or 800.

Sony likes firewire because it does not require a root hub to act as a bus controller. You can just plug any two firewire devices together and they will be able to transfer files.

[Author]

Posts