Firewire 400 is significantly faster than USB 2 and that goes double for firewire 800 so if you plan on booting from your external drive a fair bit and you care about performance then perhaps picking up a 2nd hand firewire enclosure might be the better option. The speed of your boot drive has quite a big effect on performance which is why many people choose to use SSDs for their boot drives these days.
Regards Ruben > Hi Peter, > > To answer your question, yes you can use USB2 to boot your MacBookPro. I have > a USB 2 'cheap' drive here which I book my MacBook from and although a little > bit slow it nonetheless works fine. > > Please refer to Apple's article at: > > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1948 > > Bear in mind though that USB 2 does not support 'Target Mode', at least that > is my understanding. > > Kind regards, > Philippe > > On 12/12/2011, at 1:02 PM, Curtis Peter wrote: > >> Hi >> So, to carry on from my last email, and being in a regional centre >> (Kalgoorlie) >> I can't get any IDE drives for an old enclosure I have, they say these >> drives are too slow and out of date! >> I can't get a SATA hard drive with a firewire connection, they say these are >> out of date being surpassed by USB2 and USB3, which they say is quicker >> anyway. (I'm sure I don't have USB3 in my MacBookPro anyway) >> My question is - can I boot my MacBookPro with USB2? >> Regards >> Peter >> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- >> Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> >> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> >> Settings & Unsubscribe - >> <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
