How to get USB 2.0 on Pismo?

neon6 · #1 June 16th, 2008, 11:14 AM

Hi everyone:

I own a Pismo 400, running OS X10.4.11 with default CPU, 1 Gig of Ram, and 120 GB HDD, though it takes forever using the USB 1.1 to transfer files to external drive, I was wondering if there is any way to get full USB 2.0 support through an additional PCMCIA card (480mb).

I have looked all over the net, and BELKIN seem to supply F5U222 card that does what I want, however when I looked further, it turned out that a driver is needed to utilise USB 2.0 on my current OS, other wise 1.1 spec will be used, as the native OS X USB 2.0 driver apparently doesn't work with Belkin's chipset, and there is not likely to be a driver for it.

There are also some other card that apparently suffered similar problems, some even requires AC power to allow 480 mb transfer rate. Can anyone recomment a good PCMCIA card for G3 that allows high-speed transfer?

Thanks

(I notice that Jack213 also made a post of similar post, but there is no definate solutions)

HowEver · #2 June 16th, 2008, 07:20 PM

I know you didn't ask this, but firewire would outperform USB2, so why not get a firewire or dual usb2/firewire external drive?

**fryke** · #3 June 17th, 2008, 04:06 AM

If you "notice that Jack213 also made a post of similar (kind)", use _that_ thread in the future, or at least provide a link in the new thread.

... I, too, would suggest to rather use FireWire instead. Of course, you obviously _have_ an USB-only drive and want to use that. Sadly, I'm not aware of a viable solution for USB-2 on Pismos or TiBooks. The only posts I find around the web are about _trouble_ with such cards/drivers/freezes etc.

neon6 · #4 June 17th, 2008, 07:26 AM

I see. Anyway, what's pismo's firewire bus rate? is it ATA-33? I probably get myself one of those tri interface 1TB drive when price comes down a bit.

ElDiabloConCaca · #5 June 17th, 2008, 09:27 AM

FireWire comes in two flavors: 400mbit and 800mbit.

The Pismo's FireWire implementation is of the 400mbit flavor.

ATA-33 has nothing to do with FireWire, and is a completely different type of interface.

neon6 · #6 June 17th, 2008, 10:52 AM

Thanks

And in reality, what kind of transfer rate will I be looking at on pismo through firewire?

ElDiabloConCaca · #7 June 17th, 2008, 11:18 AM

About 10-20 megabytes per second, probably, depending on how fast the internal hard drive is (assuming you're coping to/from the FireWire drive to/from the internal drive).

neon6 · #8 June 17th, 2008, 11:27 AM

It's a standard 5400 rpm drive recently made, so the rate ought to be much higher than USB 1.1?