XP Pro and IEEE 1934 (Firewire)

[Blue Apricot]

I just bought a brand new computer from Dell with an IEEE 1394 adapter.
Now I want to buy a 500GB External Hard Drive in an enclosure.

Can I benefit by using the firewire port instead of the USB port to
connect? I am getting a lot of conflicting information.

Here are things I have been told:

1. There is no benefit to using Firewire over USB because XP only
transfers 200 MB per second, whether the Firewire is 400 or the newer
800
2. My adapter cannot be the newer kind because they do not make them
for PCs (Even though I just bought my PC, it does not say whether the
adapter is 1394A, or 1394B) only Macs have the fast ones

Ideally, I would like to have this "external hard drive" transfer as
fast as possible, but there is no point in paying moer $$ for a
"better" enclosure with support for new (or even old) Firewire if it
will be no better/faster on a PC running XP using USB.

Thanks for any comments,
Blue Apricot

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I just bought a brand new computer from Dell with an IEEE 1394 adapter.
Now I want to buy a 500GB External Hard Drive in an enclosure.

Can I benefit by using the firewire port instead of the USB port to
connect? I am getting a lot of conflicting information.

Here are things I have been told:

1. There is no benefit to using Firewire over USB because XP only
transfers 200 MB per second, whether the Firewire is 400 or the newer
800
2. My adapter cannot be the newer kind because they do not make them
for PCs (Even though I just bought my PC, it does not say whether the
adapter is 1394A, or 1394B) only Macs have the fast ones

Ideally, I would like to have this "external hard drive" transfer as
fast as possible, but there is no point in paying moer $$ for a
"better" enclosure with support for new (or even old) Firewire if it
will be no better/faster on a PC running XP using USB.

Thanks for any comments,
Blue Apricot

USB2.0 transfer rates are 480 mbps, if XP SP1 is installed. Pre-SP1 did
not have USB2 high-speed support.

For regular data use, I have not found FireWire to be of any benefit over
USB2, and in fact find the interface to be considerably less durable.

All of the Firewire and Firewire/USB2 external drive cases I have had have
failed electrically. None of the many USB2-only cases or devices I've used
have failed in the same way.

If the cabling is secure and the drives or devices are never moved, it's
fine. But it's *very* easy to unplug the cabling, accidentally or
deliberately, at the "wrong" time, which with FireWire devices can easily
lead to permanent electrical failure of the port on either end, requiring
service and frequently replacement. I've not had any USB devices fail for
this reason.

This is known as "hot-plugging", and it's an extremely useful feature.
It's how you can stick in a USB thumb-drive key or camera or MP3 player and
copy files without having to first power down the machine. Unfortunately,
it sometimes has catastrophic effects with FireWire devices.

http://www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/FireWirePortFailures.htm

M-Audio, who manufacture USB2 and Firewire audio devices, caution against
hot-plugging FireWire devices as it can render the ports "permanently
inoperable".
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support.faq&ID=c9d161aac920b52a508de3167730a7ae&setlocale=en_us

I do own a FireWire audio interface, and it works well, but it is in a fixed
location and the cabling is arranged so that it can't be easily detached.
If I need to do mobile, I use a USB2 device, which doesn't care about
hot-plugging. And I never use FireWire boxes any more for moving data
between machines.

Finally, if you're planning on using this external drive as a backup, be
sure that *it* gets backed up, too.


HTH
-pk

 

[Jonny]

I just bought a brand new computer from Dell with an IEEE 1394 adapter.
Now I want to buy a 500GB External Hard Drive in an enclosure.

Can I benefit by using the firewire port instead of the USB port to
connect? I am getting a lot of conflicting information.

Here are things I have been told:

1. There is no benefit to using Firewire over USB because XP only
transfers 200 MB per second, whether the Firewire is 400 or the newer
800
2. My adapter cannot be the newer kind because they do not make them
for PCs (Even though I just bought my PC, it does not say whether the
adapter is 1394A, or 1394B) only Macs have the fast ones

Ideally, I would like to have this "external hard drive" transfer as
fast as possible, but there is no point in paying moer $$ for a
"better" enclosure with support for new (or even old) Firewire if it
will be no better/faster on a PC running XP using USB.

Thanks for any comments,
Blue Apricot

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...07-18B5-4112-8BD6-8BF4BD3130B9&displaylang=en

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/08/23/drivers_improve_windowsxp_service_pack_2_firewire/index.html

Hardware is hardware. Be it PC or MAC.

Am using onboard 1394A chipset as part of the motherboard, and SP2. Did the
mod noted in the KB article above anyway.

The only firewire device I use is a 1394A speed firewire enclosure with WD
drive in it. Its an earlier model enclosure by ADS. I removed the original
hard drive (failed after 2 weeks, mfr of hard drive had "Jupiter" label on
it) and dropped in the WD hard drive. I use it as target for XP partition
image files and some personal financial files. It is an alternate backup
location. I turn it on only when I intend to backup to that location, and
turn off when done.

Have also experimentally connected my PC to my laptop via firewire (1394A
speed), works fine as LAN connection. Was very easy, and to the point.

You will need (1) 1394B capable interface, (2) 1394B certified firewire
cable, (3) 1394B enclosure for the hard drive for any possibility for full
800 speed.

 

[Blue Apricot]

Thanks for the repsonses, guys. I am looking into the links provided,
and starting to lean towards just using a USB connection. I just want
to have a reliable, fast external HD. Firewire seems problematic, for
this purpose.

A guy froma store I usually buy from told me "Firewire 800" only works
with RAIDed dual drives... this is getting to complicacted for me.
Here is the info he gave me:

Firewire 800 speeds can only be obtained when you use two drives in a chassis and
connect them together with a RAID 0 controller. The only manufacturer doing that is
Lacie. Since RAID 0 can lead to a higher failure rate, it's only recommended for
applications requiring speed over safety. A standard IDE drive installed INSIDE a PC
has a sustained transfer rate of about 43mb/second on average. An external single drive
in a enclosure can not be any faster than the maximum speed of a internal drive! In a
RAID 0 array, the data is written and read from two drives linked as one effectively
doubling the the transfer rate.

Please see Lacie's website for a listing of their 800 drives that use the internal RAID 0
configuration. We have two 500gb Lacie drives on our website but I don't know which is
which.

In the case of the Lacie drive that is not RAIDed, our drive operates at the same speed.
Firewire 800 doesn't really give you any advantage over the 400 speed unless you've
RAIDed the drives.

Does this make sense?
Thanks,
Blue Apricot

 

[Jonny]

Thanks for the repsonses, guys. I am looking into the links provided,
and starting to lean towards just using a USB connection. I just want
to have a reliable, fast external HD. Firewire seems problematic, for
this purpose.

A guy froma store I usually buy from told me "Firewire 800" only works
with RAIDed dual drives... this is getting to complicacted for me.
Here is the info he gave me:



Does this make sense?
Thanks,
Blue Apricot

Yes. It simply means one hard drive can't cope with 1394B throughput speed.
So, its split between two hard drive using RAID 0. Two RAID 0 drives are
"seen" as one hard drive for reads and writes. Way overengineered for a
simple backup system, and expensive.

Go with USB 2.0 or a retro 1394 system. XP will backpedal if too fast on
firewire. See the link provided.