New, Larger HD Time -- USB 3 or FireWire 800??

[dbender]

Would be great to get some helpful input and advice about this buying decision I need to make now.

I'm outgrowing one of my external drives. It is a 7200 RPM Fire Wire 800 ("FW") hard drive ("HD"), which I use for my DP projects and songs. (My other external HD is a 7200 RPM FW 800 I use for samples, it is daisy chained from the first). Here's the setup now:

iMac > {Thunderbolt 2 to 1 adapter > Thunderbolt to FW adapter} > HD1 (the DP Projects HD) > HD2 (samples drive)

HD1 is a OWC FW miniStack enclosure.

I'm wondering whether to just install a new larger internal hard drive into HD1 (the OWC FW miniStack used for the DP projects and songs), OR whether to instead get a G-Technology G/Drive external 7200 RPM USB 3.0 hard drive and connect it to the computer via a USB 3.0 hub (have to use the hub).

I'm old school and from the old days. Back in the day, USB 2.0 was not good for digital audio, so I always used FW (first 400, later the 800 when that came out).

But I've heard USB 3.0 is as fast or faster than FW 800, and is now widely used and OK for a streaming audio drive for my DP projects and songs.

So, is it ok and no problem to get the G-Technology G/Drive external 7200 RPM USB 3.0 hard drive, OR should I get a new larger internal hard drive and install it into the OWC FW miniStack (to replace the smaller capacity hard drive now installed in it)???

Thanks very much for and much appreciate any advice!

[rockitcity]

The correct answer is Thunderbolt, but those USB 3 drives are so cheap it's hard to resist. I've used USB 3 drives for audio quite a bit now without issues. FW 800 is obsolete, so don't throw any more money into that.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Agree with the well informed Rockcity! Ditch the FW. FWIW, I'm seeing better performance from USB3 than I am from Thunderbolt.

[mikehalloran]

FireWire is dead.

What year and model iMac?

[bayswater]

I'm surprised to hear you can still buy FW enclosures. And when I last looked for one, most of them had both FW800 and USB3 connections anyway.

[dbender]

Thanks, guys.

It's a 2017 i7 4 Ghz iMac bought fall 2017. When I got it, I already had the "recording" drive and the "samples" drive. Both were OWC. The "samples" drive was/still is a Mercury Elite w/ both FW800 and USB 3 ports. The "recording" drive was/still is a miniStack enclosure w/ FW800 USB and 3 ports.

So I didn't want to buy new Thunderbolt drives when I bought the new computer, since these two hard drives I already had could be daisy chained and connected to the computer via the two Thunderbolt adapter cables in series, as shown in my original post.

So, now I need a larger "recording" drive, i.e., the miniStack enclosure, need more space (I also use that drive for other things, like photos and other stuff).

I can either put a new drive into the miniStack enclosure, or just buy a new G-Tech drive that is USB 3.0 only. That's why I asked about this choice.

OWC has on sale for about $160 a 3.5" 6 TB Toshiba drive that I could put into the miniStack enclosure (that I use for the "recording" drive). OR, Amazon has an external 8 TB G-Tech USB 3.0 hard drive for $240.

So that's the choice before me now – either buy a new external USB 3.0 HD (i.e., the 8 TB G-Tech USB 3.0 hard drive), OR buy and put a new 3.5" drive into the miniStack enclosure.

Which way of these two options would you do if you were in my situation?

From your responses so far and other research, the new external USB 3.0 HD (i.e., the 8 TB G-Tech USB 3.0 hard drive) would work just as well as the miniStack, so I'm leaning towards that. And, the miniStack enclosure is pretty old, at least 5+ years, so I wonder about putting money into a new 3.5" drive to put into it, instead of just getting a completely new drive and enclosure by buying the external 8 TB G-Tech USB 3.0 hard drive for $240.

[mikehalloran]

It's a 2017 i7 4 Ghz iMac bought fall 2017.

A 4.0 has USB 3 ports, TB2 and is a 2015 model. Don't worry, that's still a kickass machine but my recommendations will change accordingly. A 2017 model is 4.2 and has TB3 over USB-C. Which is it really? It makes a difference.

You bought a computer capable of real performance. Why cripple it with drives that are capable of less than 1/10 the speed of your iMac?

The correct answer is None of the Above.

What is the onboard storage? HDD (shouldn't be), SSD or Fusion? How large? Are you still under AppleCare?