USB 2.0 on a Mac? Need Clarification...

M

MMak

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Does a Mac support USB 2.0 transfers?

I'm rather new to the Mac environment and I recently bought a Titanium Powerbook (15" screen, 1GHz, 1GB Ram, Mac OS 10.2.6).

Can somebody clarify if my system supports USB 2.0 devices with USB 2.0 transfer rates? I'm planning to buy a USB 2.0 card reader and a 3.5" enclosure. If my system doesn't support USB 2.0 then there's no reason for me to buy a USB 2.0 device while the speed will be capped tremendously.

I read that there are USB 2.0 cardbus/PC cards for the Powerbook to support USB 2.0 transfers. Is that the only way to go?
 
Your system only has USB 1.1 ports - the only Macs to have built-in USB 2.0 ports are the new G5's.

Yes - the only way to support USB 2.0 in your TiBook is to add a USB 2.0 CardBus card and install the drivers (Panther supposedly supports these PCI cards without additional drivers).
 
I installed a USB 2 PCI card on my G4 and it worked without any drivers however it was at USB 1.1 speed. I did try installing the Orange USB 2 driver but I'm fairly sure its not running at full speed yet. Panther should sort that once its out hopefully.
 
Look in System Profiler. How many USB buses are listed?

On my B&W, there is only 1 internal bus and the USB 2.0 card, with the drivers installed, adds 2 more buses.

On the Sawtooth at work, there are 2 built-in buses, so the USB 2.0 card would add 2 more for a total of 4.

Click on the Extensions tab - look for the driver (OMI-EHCI or something like that-I'm at work) - if it says it's loaded, you're running at 2.0.
 
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