Firewire VS USB 2.0

techguy

A couple of questions to clear up..

First off, I have a 1394 connection on the side of my laptop is this a firewire connection?

Second: Are USB 2.0 and Firewire (Like above) Two competeing intefaces designed by two different houses or is firewire a lot faster than USB 2.0
I am just curious because I am considering getting a large ext hard drive for my laptop and I want the fastest transfer rate possible..
And on that note what good reliable / good value hard drives would you recommend (80-200 GB range)

Thanks,

Wakko

Ruu_Old

Aye, FireWire is also known as i.Link or IEEE 1394.

USB 2 is faster overall afaik but I have heard that Firewire is good for particular devices like external hard drives because I think Firewire data transfer rates are better than USB 2.0. Id stick with USB 2.0 though, just my preference

techguy

Cheers..

Has the firewire port changed? mine is a lot smaller now than the one I used to have on my iBook years ago..

8T8

First off, I have a 1394 connection on the side of my laptop is this a firewire connection?

Yes

Are USB 2.0 and Firewire (Like above) Two competing interfaces designed by two different houses

In a manner Firewire came before USB2 but the forces behind completely mishandled it, Intel very annoyed at them basically went right were not using Firewire and developed USB 2 hence Firewire was relegated to a niche status.


The difference isn't too great between USB2 & FW400 but generally speaking for external hard drives Firewire is better for them than USB 2 in most HD activities.

As for hard drives take your pick realy they all should be okay performance isnt much of an issue as you are bound by the 400mbps Firewire interface anyway.

There are 4-pin and 6-pin Firewire connectors, the 4-pins dont carry power and are much smaller.

Aziraphale

USB Hi-speed is supposed to have a slightly higher data transfer rate than FireWire 400 (if you've got FireWire 800 no contest, go with that), but in reality, FireWire's faster. If you're planning on using Mac OS X at any point, you should note that it can't boot from USB drives.

Other stuff:

FireWire cables are more expensive than USB

You can daisy-chain more devices off FireWire

You'll probably want your USB ports for something else, soon. External HDs is where FireWire shines.

Aziraphale

8T8 wrote:

There are 4-pin and 6-pin Firewire connectors, the 4-pins dont carry power and are much smaller.

And 9-pin.

Sam Vimes

i wouldn't go with firewire. most people don't have it so it'll just cause hassle if you want to plug it into someone else's computer. and if you have firewire 400, usb 2.0 (480Mbps) is in theory slightly faster, although someone people disagree in practice. and if its firewire 800 it'll be considerably faster. basically if its 800 and you don't want much compatibility go with firewire, otherwise go usb

SouperComputer

pretty much what the guys said:

* USB 2.0 is only faster on paper, in real world situations firewire can be as much as 20% faster, espcially in situations where there are lots of I\O's. Using an external HD is one example.

* Firewire also uses less CPU time as it is a peer-to-peer technology, it does not rely on the host machine's CPU.

*Daisychaning of devices is possible with firewire.

Lastly, although this is debateable, firewire is 12years old now (Twas the 13th standard registered in 1994, hence 1394:) ) so it would be fair to say that the bugs have been ironed out. USB 2.0 is much better than when first released, but firewire seems to have the upper hand there. Even windows 98SE has built in firewire drivers.

I would reccomend that you get an external HD with both 1394 and USB 2.0 connections. The firewire will load your CPU less and offer more effective bandwidth but you also then have a plan B when connecting to other computers.

pontovic

Here is what you should do

Buy a fast laptop har drive and get a case for it too from komplett. The case I got was only 30 euro and it's so small and easy to use. It uses USB and doesn't require an external AC adaptor or anything, so all you need to do is plug it into your computer. I would go for USB 2.0 if you are doing everyday things, and maybe consider something faster if you really need all that bandwidth (ie: video editing).

SouperComputer

pontovic wrote:

it uses USB and doesn't require an external AC adaptor or anything

Big, dangerous assumption there. You can get away with this on 1.8" drives, but with 2.5" it depends on the current provided to the USB bus and how many other peripherals are draining it. In quite a few cases it is below par.

Its not uncommon for a 2.5" drive to be connected to a computer and either shut it down or not spin up properly.


Go for the segate external range, quiet, reliable and quick enough: http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=305861

They used to have a cheaper, 250 GB version im sure you could source it elsewhere.

If you want somthing physically smaller, IE 2.5" then you will have to forget about going above 100GB for a while and pay a premium for the portability.

fade2che

SouperComputer wrote:

pretty much what the guys said:

* USB 2.0 is only faster on paper, in real world situations firewire can be as much as 20% faster, espcially in situations where there are lots of I\O's. Using an external HD is one example.

* Firewire also uses less CPU time as it is a peer-to-peer technology, it does not rely on the host machine's CPU.

*Daisychaning of devices is possible with firewire.

Lastly, although this is debateable, firewire is 12years old now so it would be fair to say that the bugs have been ironed out. USB 2.0 is much better than when first released, but firewire seems to have the upper hand there. Even windows 98SE has built in firewire drivers.

I would reccomend that you get an external HD with both 1394 and USB 2.0 connections. The firewire will load your CPU less and offer more effective bandwidth but you also then have a plan B when connecting to other computers.

I have to agree strongly with all of this,
I recently bought a 300 gig HD from dabs.com and a case from pixmania.com
The case has both firewire and USB2, it also has a fan.
I made sure it had a fan as a friend of mine had a lot of problems with a similar config without a fan. Im not sayin all his problem stemed from not having a fan but the drive ran extremly hot if left on for over an hour or two.

I use the drive for movies and data backup.
I have to say firewire is faster in my oponion but I couldnt do without both as friends computers rarely have firewire. And to have both on the case does cost more. And on paper the difference is small (400mbs for firewire, 480 for usb2) but in practice firewire seems faster.

Hope this is of use......

MrVestek

You're forgetting one crucial thing though guys, you can network via firewire, you can't via USB. Dead handy for exchanging things between say, a laptop and hdd at 4 times the speed of most Ethernet cards these days (ok so I know that there's Gigabit but the chances of both pc and laptop or whatever having them are pretty slim).

SouperComputer

Achilles wrote:

You're forgetting one crucial thing though guys, you can network via firewire, you can't via USB. Dead handy for exchanging things between say, a laptop and hdd at 4 times the speed of most Ethernet cards these days (ok so I know that there's Gigabit but the chances of both pc and laptop or whatever having them are pretty slim).

Didnt forget, but for a lot of people the whole TCP\IP thing is just not viable, hence I didnt mention it.

It is dead handy though and in some cases gives Gb over copper a run for its money. Of course firewire is only sutiable for "peer to peer" networking.

astrofool

Firewire networking is being dropped from Vista btw, natively anyway. I'd see firewire as the successor to the serial port, and USB as the successor to the parallel/ps2 ports. Firewire is great for debugging as well (USB isn't).

Its a pity it never caught on properly though, afaik, even Apple have started to drop it. It's gonna be a USB world. (+ maybe external SATA for HD's)

SouperComputer

yea, its a real shame it wasn't more popular. Great interface, even more impressive when you consider its age.

If jobs hadnt priced it so high to begin with, it might have been more prevelant.

MrVestek

Personally I love the firewire interface, even when I'm transferring, or rather was before my step mother bloody lost the thing on me, files to my mp3 player, and large volumes at that explorer when using windows would never slow down, it did occasionally when using USB tho. TBH I think it's a superior format but then again I tend to support lesser popular formats, being a Linux geek and having owned a Dreamcast and all :P

Aziraphale

astrofool wrote:

Firewire networking is being dropped from Vista btw

Why?

Apple's crazy to be dropping it from iPods. (And haven't they taken FW 800 off their Intel Macs?) You should see the amount of people moaning about it on the Mac boards.

Maybe it would have caught on better if people like Dell didn't insist on calling it IEEE 1394.

SouperComputer

Maybe it would have caught on better if people like Dell didn't insist on calling it IEEE 1394.

Firewire is a registered trademark of Apple, so they cant do that without shelling out a few bob on top of what the already have to pay to use the patent.


but wait, theres more!