new to the forums-- question about time

[DEinspanjer]

Originally Posted by dnanian

An Intel should run at about 8-12MB/s, assuming things are going well. You can lightly use the computer, but don't run VMWare/Parallels/Entourage/etc... things with big data files. Don't download, don't run iTunes...

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but this question and answer was exactly what I was searching for.

I just did a fresh clone of my MBP and was getting between 8 to 12 MiB/s as the typical value displayed in the progress dialog. When it finished, it reported the effective rate was 20MiB/s. I'm assuming that might have been due to small files that it blew through at the end or something.

My follow up question is sorta "why?". I'm using Firewire 800, it is theoretically rated at 800 megabits/s which would theoretically mean 100 megabytes/s. Was it a waste to get something rated at 100 MB/s if I'm ever only going to see 12 MB/s? Is there some optimal circumstance that I could see significantly better transfer rates? I was hoping to cut my backup time in half by upgrading from USB2 to FW800 and that doesn't appear to be possible.