External Hard Drive/AppleTV Question

[Tannerozzy]

I'm upgrading to a larger external hard drive. I've decided on the Western Digital 1TB. For about $50 more, I can get the same drive but with FireWire800. I need some help figuring out if the FireWire would be a good option for me. Here's how I'll be using the drive:
I use handbrake to make appleTV files from dvds and will be putting those files on the external drive. Then I control+option drag the movies into itunes (so there file is only on the hard drive instead of also being copied into my itunes folder) and watch them on the AppleTV downstairs. That's really about all I'll be using it for.

My question then is, if I've been using just a USB externaldrive, and switch to a FireWire800 one, will my AppleTV respond better when I use it to play those movies? Or is it pretty much just the network that controls that? When I play movies right now, it usually takes a bit to start. And when it comes to rewinding or fast forwarding a few minutes... it's pretty ridiculously frustrating.

Would upgrading to FireWire help with this, or does it all come down to the network (airport extreme)?

 

[fok]

The network is by far the rate limiting factor. Your hard drive (whether USB/FW 400/FW 800) is probably 100x faster that airport.

One thing to keep the speed up is to make sure the hardware you (both airport and computer) are using the "N" wireless protocol rather than "G."

 

[Cave Man]

My question then is, if I've been using just a USB externaldrive, and switch to a FireWire800 one, will my AppleTV respond better when I use it to play those movies? Or is it pretty much just the network that controls that?

Your network will be the bottleneck.

Your hard drive (whether USB/FW 400/FW 800) is probably 100x faster that airport.

Well, that's stretching it a bit. 802.11n will get you about 70 mbps, 802.11g about 40 mbps, and ethernet about 90 mbps. USB2 will be about 250 mbps and FW are about what they say they are (400 or 800 mbps).

 

[Tannerozzy]

Alright, thanks a lot guys