[geeks] Intel Mac Mini - Horrible USB2 drive performance

[geeks at litfire.com]

Not sure if anyone can help with this or maybe commiserate if there's
nothing to be done.

 

I have an Intel Core Duo Mac Mini I've been trying to use as my iTunes
library device to feed my AppleTV.  I'm happy with the plan, using Handbrake
to deal with DVD to aTV, etc.

 

What I'm not happy about is the performance of external USB2 drives on the
Mini.  XBench for the two drives I got (500GB, one a Cavalry, the other a WD
MyBook Essential) show sub-1MB/sec throughput - which corresponds rather
well, unfortunately, with the real-world performance I'm seeing with a few
dozen gigs taking the better part of a calendar day to copy.

 

Aside from the "Use FireWire, it's a better interface" which I know that
many tend to whip out around Macs, I think that performance that crappy is
indicative of a problem.  Unplugging from the Mac and plugging into my XP
box shows the limitations of the interface - at 33MB/s or so.  Same two
drives, and I reformatted NTFS or HFS+ based upon which machine I was
checking.

 

Horribly enough, mounting the same drives as an SMB share over GigE
benchmarks over 30MB/sec on the Mini!

 

Has anyone got any insight into how to undo whatever idiotic thing is
causing the problem?  I don't think that "buy firewire enclosures and move
the drives" is a legitimate answer.  I've been told in an IRC channel that I
frequent that the MacOS X USB drivers are to blame, but I can't find any
reliable back-up for that notion.

 

Help?!?

 

-Anthony