External HDD and iPhoto

[melted.marsbar]

From another thread, I noticed the Sales Harvey Norman are having tomorrow, including the 320GB Western Digital MyBook external drives for $97 (http://forums.mactalk.com.au/490153-post47.html).

I would like to purchase one for my iPhoto libraries. I have about 4000 photos in one library, and 8000 in another. As I have a new camera, a lot of these pictures are at 10MP (so about 3-5mb per photo).

I'm pretty sure that this model only has a USB interface. I have Googled it to find that some sites say just USB, and others say it has FW400 and eSATA. :confused:

Would I notice much of a lag if I used it via USB? Obviously, I wouldn't be trying to open 8000 photos at once - just their thumbnails - and then opening single images one at a time for editing...

Thanks!

Mitch

[Thunderstruck]

Find one with Firewire. Avoid USB for hard drives if you can. They're agonizingly slow even with USB 2.0.

[Jun]

I attempted to use an external drive for my iPhoto library - about 7000 photos - painfully slow.

I quickly swapped it for a firewire drive.

Firewire is the way to go.

[melted.marsbar]

Thanks guys. I always thought FireWire would be the way to go. I'll still grab one of these USB ones for Time Machine - I can just leave it on overnight to backup if I need to. Cheers.