I've just bought and external hard drive which came with some back up software. The transfer of data via the firewire port seems to be dreadfully slow not helped by the fact that all files copied across also have some dcm files attached to it (does not happen if use windows explorer to copy to the hard drive). Anyway about 8.6GB data took about 16 hrs to be backed up I make that less than 2 megabits a sec (8.6=8600megabytesx8=68800megabits/57600(16x60x60). is my formula right?

I then tried copying a folder of photos of 145megabytes via the firewire direct to the following:

internal drive - another folder - time taken 10 secs - I make that 116 megabits/sec

external hard drive via firewire using windows explorer time 25 secs = 46 megabits/sex

usb flash drive - 40 secs - 29 megabits/sec

my pc is dual core 3.00 about 2 yrs old - the above transfer speeds seem somewhat slow compared to speeds of upto 400 megabits for sec for firewire and usb or have my maths gone awry

Sounds like the back-up software is a bit suspect (depending on what it was configured to do). Some "lite" or bundled versions of back-up software seem to be deliberately crippled to encourage users to upgrade to "pro" versions.

In my experience with firewire drives the most common problems are:

a) Crappy cables

Out of date or poorly written driver software

c) Out of date / bad versions of the firewire firmware.

See if you can borrow a known good quality cable and re-run your tests, and check the manufacturer's website for driver and firmware updates.

One last thing, how is the new drive formatted? This may effect write / read efficiency.

8.6GB shouldnt take long at all. I can backup my entire pc which contains around 60GB of data in less than 1hr to a USB2.0 (Slower than firewire) external HD.

Yup.. ditch the backup software!

depending what you want to back up.. use SYNCTOY - its a microsoft freebie..

i use it to sync my documents and firefox profile to my NAS..

if you want to back up your entire computer, consider something like acronis trueimage, which is pretty much the best there is