Submitted by
Users who Dugg This
Emily Arthur
220 Followers
Praneeth Reddy
413 Followers
Forgiven Sinner
1941 Followers
Noah Rooney
51 Followers
Ryan Poolos
3 Followers
Russ Smith
18390 Followers
praneethreddyJan 13, 2011
I can't believe there are actually that many firewire users!
Usually , I see only professionals using firewire , all standard users prefer USB I guess!Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
norman619Jan 13, 2011
There don't have to be users. Most new motherboards have built in firewire. 2 billion ports does not translate into 2 billion firewire users.
lordvanceJan 14, 2011
This. I've had a firewire port in my last three desktops (I don't upgrade very frequently) - yet I've never owned a firewire device. Heck, in the room I'm sitting in there are 6 unused firewire ports atm.
enantiodromiaJan 14, 2011
are they firewire 800? if so, you are just wasting them.
dirtyfriesJan 13, 2011
With Firewire it isn't so much about how fast it is as it is sustained speed. USB works more in spurts, whereas Firewire is consistent. That's why it's preferred for applications like video editing where a consistent stream speed is needed.
Both techs have their place.
knute5Jan 14, 2011
Amen. Firewire doesn't tax the CPU like USB, so for data-intensive, real-time connections, it rocked, although perhaps USB3 changes that. The first iPods were all Firewire, which is why they shuttled data 10 times faster than USB MP3 players and Apple took over the market. FW will probably give way to Lightpeak later this year. 10Gb/s - 100Gb/s, copper to fiber. The future looks bright all across the board.
superkendallJan 13, 2011
Firewire is still way nicer than USB, primarily because of how easy it is to chain devices and the lack of need to use CPU for processing.
The most fantastic use of Firewire though, is that on a Mac you can boot a system in "Target disk mode" where all it does is sit there allowing access to your hard drive over firewire. When a disk is really going bad this can be a great means of last resort to get your files off even if the O.S. has become corrupted.
Also, USB 3.0 may indeed be faster. But there are not a lot of devices around that can use or or a lot of computers that have it built in.
norman619Jan 13, 2011
"Also, USB 3.0 may indeed be faster. But there are not a lot of devices around that can use or or a lot of computers that have it built in."
This last part of your comment was silly. USB 3.0 is a new technology. No s**t it's not in wide use yet.
superkendallJan 13, 2011
Being true does not make something "silly", especially when Engadget is trying to make it seem like USB 3.0 is standard and utterly replaces firewire.
norman619Jan 14, 2011
Naybe I shuld have just called him Cpt. Obvious and be done with it.
superkendallJan 13, 2011
In this article:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9162399/USB_3.0_The_new_speed_limit?taxonomyId=12&pageNumber=3
The fastest speeds recorded were 466Mbit for read and write on a USB 3.0 drive (that was a Seagate case using an Expresscard USB 3.0 adaptor).
In XBench for the Mac, on my external FW800 drive I get 568Mbit for sequential uncached writes and 519Mbit for sequential reads.
So how is USB 3.0 faster again? It may be in theory but as we can see there's a long road between peak theoretical performance and reality...
staticsynapseJan 13, 2011
Good point about theoretical speed limits vs real world results but if you're talking about external HDD speeds eSATA is what you should be comparing things to. Don't know about macs but its common on newer PC's.
superkendallJan 13, 2011
I also have eSata (my case supports both and I have an expressCard for that), though Firewire is fast enough I often don't bother to put in the card...
But the thing is that the point is Engadget is claiming USB 3.0 is faster than firewire, when right now that's just not so.
So it also means that most people who want the speed USB 3.0 is supposed to offer, will already be using eSata and then why would they push for USB 3.0 if they already have a faster solution? USB 3.0 will take a while to really get going I think (though obviously it will simply replace the USB 2.0 we have on systems today). Where I really think speed is going though, is Lightpeak - since on that you can run displays or hard drives or anything all out of a single port. Having one port for all output should be a really nice thing.
danielfayJan 14, 2011
I looked at the article, and it looks like they were only looking at mechanical hard drives. As a result, the interface, whether FW800, eSATA, or USB 3.0, is not the bottleneck, so you're going to see much difference between the three interfaces.
If they had compared a fast SSD with the three interfaces, on the other hand, eSATA and USB 3.0 would probably have pulled away a great deal from FW800.
superkendallJan 14, 2011
I think you're probably right, because when I switch to eSata I don't see substantially different numbers from my test program. It's odd though as I thought modern SATA drives had higher throughput than FW800 could deliver, I'll have to investigate more... perhaps my external case is poor (though it was supposed to be pretty good).
superkendallJan 14, 2011
The comments on this page also bear out your suspicions (though they get higher results than the other test did also with mechanical drives)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-superspeed-external-drive,2670-7.html
ryanbobpoolosJan 13, 2011
Firewire 3200 will be the heat! If its not outdated before launch by lightpeak.
stallscribbleJan 13, 2011
CAT 1 REPRESENT
Closed AccountJan 13, 2011
firewire is a great name and it has an awesome logo. i remember lusting after these small bright orange external firewire hard drives in the late 90s and thinking the logo looked like alien hieroglyphics. Always wanted to buy one to put my porn on. But could never afford it. And now you can get an ugly 1TB external drive for $70. Not as cool but it holds is alot of porn.
socketassaultJan 13, 2011
I'm just going to guess that you have a mac.
"Apple is a great name and it has an awesome logo. i remember lusting after these shiny white smooth computers in the late 90s and thinking the logo looked like the coolest apple evar. Always wanted to buy one to put my porn on. But could never afford it."
Fix'd lol.
Apple's marketing does wonders. It was called IEEE 1394, Apple renames it, makes a nice picture, and suddenly everyone wants to use it.
I've never had a need to use Firewire though. I don't do video, so there's no point for me.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
norman619Jan 13, 2011
Everyone suddenly wants to use it? No not really. Most users have no clue what firewire even is. Only people who actually have a use for the tech know what it is.
socketassaultJan 13, 2011
I was referring to how the only apparent reason mac was interested in it was because of the pretty colors/shiny aka Apple marketing.
ricksiteJan 14, 2011
IEEE 1394 was an Apple technology from the beginning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#History_and_development
Closed AccountJan 14, 2011
no mate. I have a $700 asus tower with 64 bit windows 7, a quad core i7, nvidia gtx 260 and 9 gigs of ddr3 ram. A mac pro with close to these specs is what $3000? I used a mac in the late 90s - in the era of os9 - had a graphite 17in imac se. now to use 64 bit cs5 you have to get a windows box. strange how things change isn't it?
socketassaultJan 15, 2011
Ha, alright.
But no one can deny that the shinyness and marketing is what gets Apple stuff sold. And your comment sounded a lot like that. ;D
mister711Jan 13, 2011
firewire > usb
wacdesignJan 13, 2011
Who cares? Competing technologies make better technologies but you know I'm just going to buy the best product as and when it's needed regardless of if it's usb or firewire.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
metzger77Jan 14, 2011
Usb 3.0 will win even if its not faster or better. its more well known.
enantiodromiaJan 14, 2011
What do you know about USB3 exactly?
lvaneedeJan 14, 2011
People still use firewire?
enantiodromiaJan 14, 2011
Sure, people who want the fastest interfaces do.
lvaneedeJan 15, 2011
What even uses it these days?
leemapleJan 14, 2011
And I've never had a need for it..
fadetooneJan 14, 2011
I've been in the tech industry for 10 years, and an avid computer user for years before that, and I've never once used firewire.
enantiodromiaJan 14, 2011
Then you haven't been doing it right, because Firewire 800 is awesome.
RexoffJan 14, 2011
Firewire worked better than USB 2.0 for audio recording. thats why most studio interfaces were off of firewire cables. but with 3.0 coming out, Im sure they will all switch over.
pethanksJan 14, 2011
That is a big amount of money!
alivemachineJan 14, 2011
Firewire is good.
dabmajikJan 14, 2011
thank for your follow
enantiodromiaJan 14, 2011
USB3.0 is still not as fast as Vorlon Federation Biosynth Data Transfer Protocol Mark 006-18.
Stupid idiots.
obitrentkenobiJan 14, 2011
Yippy! everybody get out your USB 3.0 digital cameras, video recorders, mp3 players, flash drives, external hard drives, external optical drives, mice and keyboards!!! oh that's right, nobody has that yet... my bad.
Why waste keystrokes on an article criticising a technology that people still actually use over a technology that hasn't even hit the consumer market yet!?!
Dumb.
i'm more interested in eSATA, which has 6-Gbits of data transfer rate over USB3 which claims 3-5 Gbits...
Just Sayin