External hard drive editing compatibility

[Anicsi]

Hello guys,
it's been a while since I last posted a question here,I know this forum is about software rather than hardware, but I am on an external hard drive hunt, and I really need help.

What I need: A 2.5 inch external hard drive that will still allow me to edit while on the train etc, of course while having my sources stored on said external hard drive.

The problem: My MacBook Pro is rather old. My internal hard drive recently crashed yet again and I am now running Mac OS Sierra on my 2012 MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM. I am using Premiere Pro CS6 mainly for editing, sometimes Adobe After effects.

Now, my MacBook doesn't have a USB 3.0 hub yet, so I am only left with the option of
1. USB 2.0 (which will definitely not suffice for video editing, will it? Is it even possible, as it allows data transfer only in one direction simultaneously or so I've read?)
2. Firewire 800 (which all my other external 3.5 hard drives use and served me just fine. I just want to be more flexible with a 2.5 drive, as I am always on the go. I cannot seem to find a reasonably priced drive with firewire 800 slot)
3. Thunderbolt 2 - To be honest, I've never used that Thunderbolt 2 hub, I know that Thunderbolt 3/USB-C is a thing now, but I cannot find any externals with Thunderbolt 2 cables/compabilities, so I am wondering if they actually existed in the first place.

What do you think would be the best option? Do you think it is even possible without any issues for video editing on a 2.5 inch drive?
1. Get a USB-C drive and an adapter for Thunderbolt 2 (which comes at like 50 dollars, yikes)?
2. Get a LaCie external (the only match I could find) which still support firewire 800, although it comes at more than double the price of other disks with 3.0 hubs?
(This one.)
3. ???

I also built my 'own' external once where I bought the disk and enclosure separately, but in that case I still don't know whether FireWire 800 with a 2.5 disk would be fast enough or if an adapter from Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt would be the faster option.

I would love to hear your thoughts and appreciate all replies.
Thanks a lot!
Anna

[Mol]

accordning to wikipedia usb 2.0 is 35mb.. probably bearable with clips (unless you use whole episodes then wont be a great exprience)


Take cheapest route imo, shouldnt be much of a diffrence firewire or thunderbolt

[Kionon]

I would love to hear your thoughts and appreciate all replies.
Thanks a lot!
Anna

I'm sorry for not seeing this sooner. The answer is absolutely thunderbolt for speed. Thunderbolt is 1,250 MB/s, this blows Firewire 800 out of the water. But for cost and practicability? You want to go with Firewire 800. For all intents and purposes single drive, portable, reasonably priced Thunderbolt enclosures do not exist. They're all RAID arrays which you're not going to be able to haul around on the train. Instead, go with a USB3.0/FW800 enclosure from OWC, which is the premiere mac supplier, and they're not unreasonable, either. If you can afford it, put as big of an SSD as you can it, not a spinner drive, and go to town.

[Anicsi]

Thanks for the detailed reply Kionon, as always a big help. Unfortunately I already purchased an external after Christmas, as I needed it urgently. But I'll definitely remember it for the future.

[Kionon]

Thanks for the detailed reply Kionon, as always a big help. Unfortunately I already purchased an external after Christmas, as I needed it urgently. But I'll definitely remember it for the future.

No problem. Actually, I've just been hired, after 10 years of being a humanities teacher, to an IT position. So someone will finally be paying me for this. BTW, currently running Deepin Linux on my 2012 MacBook, just for the hell of it.

Also, for yours, you really need more than 4GB, I have 16GBs and a RAID 0 SSD array in mine. It's about to be out of AppleCare at the end of this month, so I am considering what to do with it. Truthfully, while the RAM and SSD speed are more than enough to keep up with anything we need to do in 2018, the screen is just crap as a Non-Retina. It looks really awful compared to most of the 1080P plus screens we have on even mid-tier laptops these days.