Possible to use Ethernet to transfer to a USB driver faster than USB1.0

[tunedbytad]

Use my Modded Out G4 MDD 1.25 everyday mixing in ProTools5
Transferring mixes and tracks in and out of the G4 via USB1.0 is killing me on time.

Is it possible to use Ethernet to transfer to a USB driver faster than USB1.0.

I will spend money to test this if anyone thinks it is doable.

[Cashed]

Hi tunedbytad

It depends on how fast your ethernet is?
A standard 100 Mbps ethernet is 100 megabits per second. That's 12.5 megabytes per second (Mbps or MB/s). If you don’t have a gigabit router or switch and gigabit network card on your computers or NAS, the maximum speed you’ll be able to transfer a file across your home network is 12.5 MBps. I have a WD Cloud HHD, it has never been fun uploading or downloading files to it.
USB 1.1 is 12Mbps so the date transfer rate are the same as on a 100 Mbps ethernet.

If you instead use your FireWire400 port, it supports data transfer rates up to 400 Mb/s.

Another member with experiences of upgrading the G4 MDD 1.25 may be able to give you an even faster option.

[Greystash]

I've used three different types of NAS drives with my older Macs and have always found that when mounting the drive over AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) file transfers are always much faster than USB. The only time USB is fast is if I boot into OSX and the system is using those drivers.
Some NAS drives let you plug in a USB drive to it, and if you can connect via AFP you could transfer data directly to that drive. You may also be able to do it with your router, but AFP has been officially deprecated now.

[tunedbytad]

My real world and speed tests:

Transfer of OS9.2.2 Iso @ 497mb Copied Via 1.25Ghz MDD Mother Board USB

Amazon Basic USB 2.0 stick = 11.36 Minutes = 696 sec = .71 meg per sec
USB 3.0 to m.2 Sata Samsung Evo 850 = 9.54 Minutes = 594 sec = .83 meg per sec

Smaller files produce transfer much slower rates in the .4 to .5 Meg per second range :-/


***OS9.2.2.iso found here http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2109.0.html

[chrisNova777]

usb is not for storage on vintage macs. only for peripherals.
firewire was for storage.

get a gigabit ethernet realtek 8169(? or whatever the model is i cant remember) slap it in the MDD and connect the usb drive to any other computer on your network, then create a file share, problem solved 

alot of modem/routers for home internet these days have USB ports for adding a hard drive via usb and making it available on your network in that case you wouldnt even need another computer

another solution is you could get a compact flash firewire card reader + transfer files back + forth via compact flash and another computer system with a card reader

or simply buy a hard drive enclosure on ebay that has Firewire.

[IIO]

I will spend money to test this if anyone thinks it is doable.

let me put it like this: if you want to/can use your ethernet port for connecting storage, you can connect there to up to SATA III disks using an NAS enclosure.

true ethernet to usb 2 solutions will to my knowledge still require that the operating system you use understands USB 2.

otoh your computer has 6 ATA ports. if you dont need the CD drive you can easily put 6*2 TB HD or SSDs right into it.

or even better, use one of the optical connectors, add an 5 dollars SATA converter, and extend the cables a bit so that it hangs out of the front of the computer. then oyu have a docking station where you can attach "removeable" SSDs.

of course firewire would be the most straight forward solution, yet a bit slower. do you have the built-in fw ports free?

[IIO]

delete

[IIO]

It depends on how fast your ethernet is?

quicksilvers and MDDs all have gigabit. of course in real life you hardly max it out, but it can compete about with USB 2 speeds.

[SDG]

The cheapest alternative would be reboot into OSX to do larger transfers. That way, you could use USB2 or FW800. Whether the rebooting there and back would save any time over waiting for USB1.1 to do its thing is something you will have to try.

[refinery]

quicksilvers and MDDs all have gigabit. of course in real life you hardly max it out, but it can compete about with USB 2 speeds.

more than just those... 3rd generation Graphite G4s onward had them... (after PCI Yikes and first-gen AGP models)

[refinery]

my solution to this problem is a OS X Leopard 10.5 virtual machine running in VMWare Fusion. I have a "shared folder" in the VM which points to a folder in my home directory (this machine im on is 10.14 Mojave)
the 10.5 VM is set up with AFP sharing enabled, (10.5 was the last OSX release to support OS9 filesharing. it was also the first major OS X release to be Intel-native, and hence can be put in a VM.)
On my MDD, I just went to AppleShare in Chooser. I did have to type in the IP of as it did not show up in the server list, but as soon as I hit connect I was presented with the classic OS9 server login screen.
Save the credentials when you log in.
Once you're logged into the 10.5 server and the volume is on the desktop, create an alias and put it in your startup items folder in system folder.
Every time you start up the OS9 mac, it will (provided the 10.5 VM is running on your regular machine) automatically mount that folder on your desktop.
(you'll also know immediately if you forgot to turn on your 10.5 VM because the OS9 machine will freeze up for 2-3 minutes while it is failing to connect to the 10.5 VM)

If you dont have any concerns about security, you could even make the shared folder in the 10.5 VM your desktop, or wherever your project folder is. Files would be immediately usable after transfer.

the VM could even be hosted on a Windows machine if that is your main machine preference.

with an SSD in my OS9 MDD G4, and transfers across a gigabit network... it is ridiculously fast. the best read/write speeds on an OS9 SSD setup are in the same ballpark as what gigabit ethernet provides, so really this solution is about as good as it can get for quick file transfers.

[Cashed]

This is really refined awesome knowledge -thanks @refinery

Just came to mind that I once connected my WD My Cloud using direct connect to Mac. There were no differences in transfer rate. I can use that again on my Mac Mini connected with an ethernet cable to my 2012 iMac.
It has to be the Mac OS X Server version of 10.5 as VMware Fusion won't run non server versions.
On YouTube Lon.TV explains how to in 2.45 min.

It also makes sense to me now that I never heard about AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) before @Greystash mentioned it. As I were late to the party and started out on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

P.S I knew before replying the first time to @tunedbytads' query that his G4 MDD 1.25 originally came with 10/100/1000Base-T (Gigabit) Ethernet as standard. But when you buy something old and used, one never know if any previous owners switched out any original parts.

[refinery]

It has to be the Mac OS X Server version of 10.5 as VMware Fusion won't run non server versions.

I know it used to be possible to work around this in older versions of VMWare but I've no idea if it still works.
Alternatively, you could set up in blocking in your home router that the 10.5 VM cannot see the public internet, that way 10.5 Server cant phone home and validate its serial number. This is the method I use. Anything I need to get off the internet for my OS9 machine, I just download the file into that shared folder on Mojave and move it over.