FireWire doomed to niche interface status

jmke · 27th June 2007, 20:48

One of the more infamous and contentious threads in the history of the Battlefront was a debate over the relative merits of FireWire and USB 2.0. The original poster wondered what the point of USB 2.0 was when FireWire was already on the market? Fast forward to six years later, and a new report from research firm In-Stat is predicting that FireWire is doomed to be a niche interface.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ce-status.html

jmke · 27th June 2007, 20:51

Firewire was and is vastly superior to USB 2.0, it was at the beginning, and it still is today, lower CPU usage, can be used as extremely fast network connection between two PCs, delivers enough power over Firewire to power most devices. Really don't like the USB 2.0 only trend :/

27th June 2007, 21:02

$1 per port??? No wonder it never took off. USB 2.0 maxes out at aboout 35-40MB/s absolute best case scenario... about how much of Firewire 800's 80MB/s is lost to overhead out of curiosity? I would guess very little?

Another market it was strong in was external hard drives, however with e-sata ports and internal sata to external esata brackets becoming popular IEEE1394 is also beging to erode there as well.

jmke · 27th June 2007, 21:09

daisy chain of Firewire devices is also a nice feature, each device daisy chained as access to the full speed; that's better than eSATA

27th June 2007, 21:35

Yes and another benefit I have found absolutely essential in my tech work on Macs is their built-in "Target Disk mode" functionality. Plug any Mac into another via the firewire port and boot it up holding the T key and it's internal HDD mounts on the other machine as if an external. WONDERFUL time saver when needing to clone one machine to another or transfer over 150GB of data when swapping out someone's graphics workstation.

Sidney · 27th June 2007, 22:12

How long does it take for 150GB data? Like to compare some notes for next week

27th June 2007, 23:18

Using "standard" Firewire 400 a bit over an hour IIRC (I don't sit there and watch it). Nice when both machines have 800

Much quicker than the busy gigabit network and don't have to copy twice (network file sharing on workstations isn't permitted).

Occurred to me this would probably work to get data from a Mac to a Firewire and HFS+ enabled PC too (running MacDrive or something...)

Sidney · 27th June 2007, 23:30

I will try to find 150GB .dwg using USB and Firewire sometime next week if possible.

Or, that's about 19 DVD movies

27th June 2007, 23:39

Let us know

27th June 2007, 20:48	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	FireWire doomed to niche interface status One of the more infamous and contentious threads in the history of the Battlefront was a debate over the relative merits of FireWire and USB 2.0. The original poster wondered what the point of USB 2.0 was when FireWire was already on the market? Fast forward to six years later, and a new report from research firm In-Stat is predicting that FireWire is doomed to be a niche interface. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ce-status.html __________________

27th June 2007, 20:51	#2
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	Firewire was and is vastly superior to USB 2.0, it was at the beginning, and it still is today, lower CPU usage, can be used as extremely fast network connection between two PCs, delivers enough power over Firewire to power most devices. Really don't like the USB 2.0 only trend :/ __________________

27th June 2007, 21:09	#4
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	daisy chain of Firewire devices is also a nice feature, each device daisy chained as access to the full speed; that's better than eSATA __________________

27th June 2007, 22:12	#6
Sidney Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 15,738	How long does it take for 150GB data? Like to compare some notes for next week __________________ lazyman Opteron 165 (2) @2.85 1.42 vcore AMD Stock HSF + Chill Vent II

27th June 2007, 23:18	#7
Wrigleyvillain Posts: n/a	Using "standard" Firewire 400 a bit over an hour IIRC (I don't sit there and watch it). Nice when both machines have 800 Much quicker than the busy gigabit network and don't have to copy twice (network file sharing on workstations isn't permitted). Occurred to me this would probably work to get data from a Mac to a Firewire and HFS+ enabled PC too (running MacDrive or something...) Last edited by Wrigleyvillain : 27th June 2007 at 23:38.

27th June 2007, 21:02	#3
Kougar Posts: n/a	$1 per port??? No wonder it never took off. USB 2.0 maxes out at aboout 35-40MB/s absolute best case scenario... about how much of Firewire 800's 80MB/s is lost to overhead out of curiosity? I would guess very little? Another market it was strong in was external hard drives, however with e-sata ports and internal sata to external esata brackets becoming popular IEEE1394 is also beging to erode there as well.

27th June 2007, 21:35	#5
Wrigleyvillain Posts: n/a	Yes and another benefit I have found absolutely essential in my tech work on Macs is their built-in "Target Disk mode" functionality. Plug any Mac into another via the firewire port and boot it up holding the T key and it's internal HDD mounts on the other machine as if an external. WONDERFUL time saver when needing to clone one machine to another or transfer over 150GB of data when swapping out someone's graphics workstation.

27th June 2007, 23:30	#8
Sidney Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 15,738	I will try to find 150GB .dwg using USB and Firewire sometime next week if possible. Or, that's about 19 DVD movies __________________ lazyman Opteron 165 (2) @2.85 1.42 vcore AMD Stock HSF + Chill Vent II

27th June 2007, 23:39	#9
Wrigleyvillain Posts: n/a	Cool... Let us know

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