Slow WD MyBook Pro

A

Ahlforn

Registered
Hi

I bought a Western Digital MyBook Pro 250 GB external harddisk some time ago and recently got my 20" iMac. Now I would like to hook up my external harddisk on the iMac via firewire to get the extra features that provide and cause I have filled all the USB ports already.

When I plug it in with firewire it mounts just fine and I am able to transfer files between the iMac and the harddisk, but its soo slow while when I used USB it was working just fine. The weird thing is that when I retrieved data from the harddisk it was quite fast, but when I wanted to put files on it its unbarably slow. It have also sometimes been really really slow when I tried to retrieve data from it, but it seems to be going up and down.

Installing the software that came with the harddisk have made no difference. Infact after some research, I read that people say the software that comes with the harddisk makes it worse, since its not Universal Binary. However I felt no difference before and after I installed it.

If someone have a clue as to what I could do to make it work without problems via firewire I would be very very happy. It bothers me so much that I put money into this and it doesn't work.
 
Check this post Here.


I think I can help.
Your external hard-drive sounds like it is formatted for MS-DOS or a PC computer. This makes the information manipulation process "In Lay Terms" easier for your PC and harder for MAC.

Fear Not.

You can change this with Disk Utility.
1.)Backup your info to either computer.

2.)Open your Finder and navigate too Disk Utility which can be found in your Applications Folder under the sub-folder Utilities.

3.)Make sure at this point your external HD is plugged in. Open DISK UTILITY. Highlight your external drive in the left hand menu.

4.) Now in the top bar menu you will see the PARTITION button. Hit this, and you can choose how many partitions you would like and what to name them, along with how big you want. Choose what is best for you.

5.) The optimal format for your mac is MAC OS EXTENDED JOURNALED, and MS-DOS for your PC. Choose two partitions, and create one for your MAC with the Extended Format and one for your PC with the MS-DOS format. Let the program run its course. This should solve your problems.
 
I wish this was the case :) But thanks for the suggestion, but my harddrive is already formatted in MAC OS EXTENDED JOURNALED, cause I figured out it might had something to do with it, but it wasnt the case.

The weird thing is still that it works perfectly fine with USB but not FW.

Thanks for the response though :)
 
Interesting. I was interested in purchasing the WD MyBook as well....
I am going to look a little deeper, see what I can dig up. Maybe I will not be purchasing it after all. I prefer FW for a HD because of lower "overhead" on the system.
 
I have heard alot of people with good experiences with the MyBook, but maybe its just mine that is faulted. I don't hope that though. I have just been through a two months service deal with my Mac Mini, including 3 repairs and ending in a replacement. I got an iMac from the whole deal, so im happy, but im not keen on sending more gear in for repairs hehe.

But if you find interesting info that might help on my situation, I would be very happy to hear.
 
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