Arch Linux

voodoo.child

Member

Registered: 2007-11-01

Posts: 30

firewire

i've just ordered an external harddrive that has firewire connectivity. though i have firewire on my laptop, i've never used it before.  are there any usual problems? or tools that i need to install? i will use the harddrive as extra storage for my music/movies and few backups (so I won't write too often). what filesystem do you suggest?

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Alexandru

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: firewire

I'm using an external USB2/Firewire enclosure with a notebook harddisk for several years now, and I really prefer the Firewire connection. Sequential transfers ought to be faster (so far my disk is the limiting factor, not the interface), cpu load should be lower, and power issues (disk not spinning up due to low USB currents) are non-existant.

There are currently two different Firewire subsystems in the kernel; the older *1394 modules and the newer firewire* modules. If you get problems (unlikely), you could try switching over.

As for filesystems, I only have experience with Ext3 and JFS. Either one is okay... JFS has a more modern design and Ext3 has more features, like full data journaling or the ability to shrink the filesystem.

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Grenshad

Member

Registered: 2007-02-19

Posts: 22

Re: firewire

Theses times (since core update maybe) I cannot boot with external firewire hard drive power on (causes to me kernel panic). But firewire works very well, and yes, as byte said, it's a lot better than usb for disk access/transfert/speed _and_ cpu load!