Firewire vs. USB2

[champ222]

My apologies if this has been covered before, but i am about to get either a 20 gig ipod, or a 30 gig photo.

now i know they reccomend either firewire or usb2, but my PC doesnt have any of them, so, i need a card, thats not a problem, but which one to use?

is there any advantages of one over the other?

cheers

Andy
UK

[stickuto]

Well firstly the latest models in the iPod range all come with USB 2.0 cables, unless you are buying an older model then it would come with a Firewire cable.

Now guess you have a USB port which must be 1.1, now you can use this but it will be very slow, as you are looking to buy a new card I would go for the USB 2.0 one, Firewire is slightly faster than USB 2.0 but there are many other products that use USB too, so it is a better investment to go for the USB 2.0 card.

[Ichijoe]

USB 1.1 is 12Mb/s
IEEE1394a is 400Mb/s (i.e. FireWire400) *constant*
USB 2.0 is 480Mb/s *peek*
IEEE1394b is 800Mb/s (i.e. FireWire800) *constant*

The only problem is that IEEE1394b is standerd on G5 Mac's or as an Add-on PCI Card. Allthough it, just like USBx.x is backwards compatible with IEEE1394a. The current line of IEEE1394x compatible iPods can only use the 'a' or 400Mb/s spec.

Hopefully Apple will come back to there senses with there next generation iPod to utilize both 'Touch Buttons' al-la the 3G and the IEEE1394b spec...

[champ222]

sounds fair enough, thanks mate.

[pohatu771]

Pretty much, Firewire is 400mbps, while USB 2.0 is 480mbps. I use USB, because I don't have Firewire. I would probably use Firewire if I had it though, just to free up a USB port, which seem to be filled quickly.

[judgedanny]

i have both and from my experience, i find that firewire is a lot faster than USB 2.0

[Ichijoe]

i have both and from my experience, i find that firewire is a lot faster than USB 2.0

That's because USB2.0 @ 480Mb/s is *Peek*...
Where as IEEE1394a runs @ 400Mb/s *Constant*

In practice IEEE1394a and USB2.0 average each other out. Some People like judgedanny say that IEEE1394a is a bit faster for them though. Every iPod I have had (so far), either demanded IEE1394a from the getgo iPod G1, or had a tendency to prefer IEE1394a iPod G3. Either way I never had the need to chuck down the Cash for an IEEE1394a -> USBx.x to Dock Cable. So I can not verify or denigh the fact that IEEE1394a is faster then or not.

I can say however if Apple ever get around to implementing the IEEE1394b (e.g. FireWire800), standerd for the iPod. That will be about it for USBx.x...

[Led-Hed]

I would always pick firewire over USB-firewire devices usually do not need drivers. Also, firewire will not fluctuate in transfer speed as USB will. Why do you think MiniDV cameras natively have a firewire port?

[iApple]

FireWire is much faster. Besides, the USB ports on my computer are all used.

[smerko]

firewire all the way! get yourself a cheap pci firewire card or treat yourself to a creative soundblaster audigy2

[namja]

Yup. Firewire is the way to go. It's generally much more reliable, and it's also faster. The 480Mb/s is a joke. Typically, it's more like 300-350Mb/s.

[fightback]

Hi, so I don't even own an ipod, but I found this thread while looking for additional results to backup the results that I have discovered. Um, so google didn't help much in the way of actual results, so I figure I might as well post what I got to give info to this topic and anyone else who finds it.

Here are the benchmarks from an external drive with both usb 2.0 and firewire. I tested them on two different computers just to check the variations. I will hopefully be able to benchmark a second drive in the near future (going to order an external Seagate dual interface drive soon). I ran this test using HD Tune 2.10.

From my desktop (Dell Dimension 8400, had to add a firewire controller to it):

Firewire (1394a - TI controller of some sort)

HD Tune: Maxtor 6Y200P0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 29.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 33.5 MB/sec (which is 268 mbps)
Transfer Rate Average : 33.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.2 ms
Burst Rate : 33.6 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 1.4% (the controller probably helps this some)

-----------------------------------
USB 2.0

HD Tune: Maxtor 6Y200P0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 21.3 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 25.0 MB/sec (200mbps)
Transfer Rate Average : 24.9 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.6 ms
Burst Rate : 25.0 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 10.4%


*****************************

From my laptop (Athlon64 3000, 1.25 gigs of ram, via kt800 board):

Firewire (1394a)

HD Tune: Maxtor 6Y200P0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 26.3 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 31.6 MB/sec (252mbps)
Transfer Rate Average : 31.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.4 ms
Burst Rate : 31.4 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 3.4%

-----------------------------------
USB 2.0

HD Tune: Maxtor 6Y200P0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 19.3 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 23.4 MB/sec (187.2mbps)
Transfer Rate Average : 22.6 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.3 ms
Burst Rate : 22.9 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 23.8% (ouch!)


Hope these results help in giving some actual evidence to this argument. Honestly, before I ran this test I would have argued on the side of USB 2.0. I think this has changed my mind though.

[viejorg]

Am producing 100% quality DVD for church service for shut-ins using my 20 gb IPOD (click wheel) as external hard drive via USB2 port on laptop. Rendering video very slow. Worth buying 6pin to 4 pin adapter to enable faster data transfer? From last post, apparently not? Using Pinnacle Studio software, Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop[2.8ghz Pentium 4 w 512 ram]