Firewire faster than USB 2.0?

[y2kgtp]

I know Firewire is 'faster', but has anyone tried a Firewire to Touch cable? I have Firewire on my PC, so figured I might ask to see if anyone else has tried it.

Not sure if the Touch read\write speeds are around USB 2.0 or can go a bit faster....


http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

[bobb-mini]

Having a bit of free time didn't we... Touch doesn't support FW.

[jhollington]

More to the point, no iPod has supported FireWire transfer since the fourth-generation was discontinued about three years ago.

FireWire transfer support was dropped with the fifth-generation iPod (and first-gen iPod nano) in 2005.

[DerekVOF]

Apple decided that USB had the larger marketshare (especially in the PC world) even though they were one of the creators of FireWire (or the creator - I don't remember). Made sense...

[Allocentric]

Transfer isn't supported, but if you do happen to have an old iPod Firewire Dock Connector cable lying around you can use it to charge your iPod touch (or any other iPod for that matter). I have an old 3rd Generation iPod dock and Firewire-based power brick which I use to alternately charge my iPod touch, iPod classic, and iPod nano (2nd Gen).

[y2kgtp]

Thanks for the replies....I stumbled across some generic FW > iPod Dock conector, so was curious....

[jhollington]

Yes, those are still kicking around out there, but are for the older iPod models.

In fact, there was a time when iPods only synced via FireWire... Both the first and second-generation iPods didn't even use a Dock Connector, but rather had only a six-pin FireWire port on the top. The 3G iPod introduced the Dock Connector concept, and provided USB and FireWire sync, but still only charged via FireWire.

The 4G was the real transition between the two, as it was the only generation that provided both charging and syncing via USB or FireWire (the iPod mini supported both as well, but kind of existed in parallel with the fourth-generation iPod, so it's from the same era).

When Apple introduced the 5G iPod, they made some significant changes to the chipset, and the new chips only supported USB. Since adding a separate FireWire chip would have increased the size and complexity of the device, they simply decided to drop it entirely.

[Teechur]

Firewire runs at 400 Mbps, with USB 2.0 at 480, although the architecture allows for slightly faster transfers in some cases, with firewire.

I have noticed that with the touch I can use the firewire for charging while on a trip, but obviously not for transfer.

[txa1265]

Yes, spec-wise USB 2.0 is faster, but has anyone ever done a comparison? I have 250GB Iomega drives that include both interfaces, and in practice FireWire is much faster.

The only 'post 3rd Gen' iPods I've had are small capacity (1GB Shuffle, then a 4GB 2nd Gen Nano) so I hadn't noticed the difference compared to filling my older 40GB over Firewire ... or even my original 5GB Mac-only iPod.

Now that I have a new 32GB Touch I'm not looking forward to being stuck with slow USB ... oh, well ...

[kornchild2002]

People have done comparisons between the transfer speeds of USB2.0 and firewire. As previously stated, USB2.0 has a higher burst transfer speed which is 480Mbps. Firewire operates at 400Mbps. The difference between the two is that Firewire's speed is constant while USB2.0's speed fluctuates and 480Mbps is its top burst speed. This means that USB2.0 will retain 480Mbps for just a little bit and then drop down.

The tests concluded that USB2.0 was better when syncing small amounts of data. Firewire was better when syncing large amounts of data. In general, firewire would sync 20GB worth of data about 20 minutes faster than USB2.0.

These tests were conducted back in 2004 when Apple released the 4G iPod and everyone wanted to know which method was faster for syncing. Ever since then, the market has been USB2.0 only. USB2.0 is still fast so it doesn't really matter.

[jhollington]

Exactly.

The key point, however, is that you're only really going to notice the speed when you're doing a full reload of your iPod. Most people don't sync a lot of data on a day-to-day basis, so it's not going to be that bad from a performance point of view.

[bobb-mini]

Yes, spec-wise USB 2.0 is faster, but has anyone ever done a comparison? I have 250GB Iomega drives that include both interfaces, and in practice FireWire is much faster.
For external HD, this may be the case, but is a moot point with iPods.

Anywhoo, Beta was better, but.... after awhile it was a pita to find Beta contents.

[kornchild2002]

Exactly.

The key point, however, is that you're only really going to notice the speed when you're doing a full reload of your iPod. Most people don't sync a lot of data on a day-to-day basis, so it's not going to be that bad from a performance point of view.

Not only that but these early solid state drives used in the iPod mini and iPod touch don't have the fastest write speeds. That will change over time but right now, even with a 32GB iPod touch and loading it full to the brim with one sync, the differences between firewire and USB2.0 are going to be slim to none given the nature of SSD.

[txa1265]

Exactly.

The key point, however, is that you're only really going to notice the speed when you're doing a full reload of your iPod. Most people don't sync a lot of data on a day-to-day basis, so it's not going to be that bad from a performance point of view.

OK, then how about this:
- Apple makes iPods
- Apple focuses business on Macbooks and Macbook Pros
- Those laptops have an anemic set of USB connectors
- They have (at least my MBP's) a FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 connector
- to use my new iPod touch I have to use up 50% of my USB capacity.

It just seems stupid to have a high-end device - this isn't a shuffle here, the 32GB is a $500 toy - with a single low-end interface option.

As to the rest, your points make sense.

[kornchild2002]

USB2.0 isn't a low-end interface though. What about Firewire 400? Plug an iPod into your Firewire 400 port and 100% of them are used up (or 50% of your total Firewire ports). That argument doesn't really hold up.

It makes all the sense in the world to use USB2.0 only. Remember that iPods are purchased by both Windows and Mac OS X users. In fact, after Apple released the 2G iPod, they found that most iPod users were running Windows. Intel had been pushing their USB2.0 standard for a long time now while Apple continued to use Firewire. This means that there were more Windows users out there buying iPods that use Firewire yet the Windows users were all running USB2.0. Not only that but even the bargain basement desktop has 6 USB2.0 ports. My notebook has 8 USB2.0 ports. So I would blame Apple for not putting enough USB2.0 ports on your MacBook Pro.

[jhollington]

Consider also that the MacBook Pro uses a single firewire bus, despite it's two different-speed ports. If you're running anything particularly high-end off that FireWire bus, you really don't want to be putting other devices on it.

For instance, I have a RAID 10 FW800 array running off my MBP. If I plug in my iSight or a lower-end FireWire 400 drive, I often get read/write errors coming off of my RAID array. This is not at all uncommon when you're running high-performance FireWire accessories.

In fact, the external array is where the bulk of my iTunes library is stored, so the fact that the iPod is USB is actually an advantage in that case... Of course, I do realize that I don't exactly have a typical configuration here.... :)

[hyroboarder]

It makes all the sense in the world to use USB2.0 only.

I strongly disagree with that, because when you get past the consumer level process of doing things, there are still professionals out there that need the speed of firewire. It is the only way to connect analog tape from a video camera to a computer. Firewire 800 is even faster. External hard drives can run firewire 800 which is insanely fast.

[jhollington]

In context, I'm pretty sure he meant that it makes all the sense in the world to use USB 2.0 only for the iPod, which I would have to agree with.

The performance difference is not really that significant in my experience, particularly not with a device like the iPod, which isn't a super-fast device to begin with. On a high-performance hard drive, of course the difference is quite noticeable, but the iPod does not use high-performance storage media, since it's not really required for what it's doing.

Consider this... If you're streaming iPod-quality video (or even Apple TV quality video) from an external drive, is it going to make any difference whether it's USB or FireWire? The short answer is no. Therefore, the iPod's internals do not have to perform any faster than the maximum bit-rate of the content that they're expected to store. Any additional performance beyond that is an unintentional bonus, not a requirement of the device's design.

Supporting two very different communication protocols on a device that needs to be packed into a very small form factor would be superfluous. With the exception of the few pre-2004 Mac users who are still saddled with USB 1.1, there are very few people who are not going to find USB performance more than adequate for whatever they're doing with an iPod.

[kornchild2002]

I strongly disagree with that, because when you get past the consumer level process of doing things, there are still professionals out there that need the speed of firewire. It is the only way to connect analog tape from a video camera to a computer. Firewire 800 is even faster. External hard drives can run firewire 800 which is insanely fast.

jhollington is right, I meant USB2.0 only for iPods. Limiting external hard drives and other devices would be rather dumb given that there are people who still use Firewire 600 and people who want to take advantage of Firewire 800. I have seen many external hard drives that connect via USB2.0 only but I have also seen many others that can connect via Firewire 800. I was just talking about iPods only which you have to look at from a consumer/mass product standpoint only. You can't link professionals in with iPods as:
1. Professionals represent an extremely small portion of iPod consumers.
2. Professionals wouldn't be using iPods anyway, they would be using a Creative, iRiver, or some other brand.

I myself prefer USB2.0 simply because that is all I have. My notebook has one Firewire 600 port but it isn't powered and I don't have any Firewire devices. I have over 20 USB2.0 devices though. My external hard drive is USB2.0 only as well. That being said, I have been thinking about getting a new desktop with a 1TB external drive that runs through Firewire 800.