USB vs Firewire

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Bad Bubba

Does anyone have one of those external HD enclosures that supports both
Fireware and USB2?

Have you tried it with both? Which is "actually" faster?

A friend of mine switched from an external USB2 DVD burner to an
external Firewire DVD burner and he says that he's able to burn at 4x
now with the Firewire and was limited to 2x with the USB2.

Not that I don't trust him, but I want to make sure that Firewire is
definitely faster for external drives before I get one.

--Dave
 
Bad Bubba said:
Does anyone have one of those external HD enclosures that supports both
Fireware and USB2?

Have you tried it with both? Which is "actually" faster?
Click to expand...

Yes.

Firewire works faster.
 
Bad Bubba said:
Does anyone have one of those external HD enclosures that supports both
Fireware and USB2?

Have you tried it with both? Which is "actually" faster?

A friend of mine switched from an external USB2 DVD burner to an
external Firewire DVD burner and he says that he's able to burn at 4x
now with the Firewire and was limited to 2x with the USB2.

Not that I don't trust him, but I want to make sure that Firewire is
definitely faster for external drives before I get one.

--Dave
Click to expand...
What a load of old rubbish, USB2 is much faster than IEEE1394 and the TEAC
52X32X52 EXTERNAL USB2 CDRW drives are available at a price.
The official USB website states, "The USB-IFÕs recommended nomenclature for
consumers is ÒUSBÓ for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and
ÒHi-Speed USBÓ for high-speed products (480Mb/s), as signified in the USB
logos that were introduced in late 2000.Ê In short, consumers wishing to be
certain they are getting the performance they paid for in their USB products
can use the logo for clarification."

As only APPLE use Firewire800 on a PC USB2 is faster.


Chris
Technical director CKCCOMPUSCRIPT
Apple Computers, Intel, Roland audio, ATI, Microsoft, Sun Solaris, Cisco and
Silicone Graphics.
Wholesale distributor and specialist audio visual computers and servers
FREE SUPPORT @,
http://www.ckccomp.plus.com/site/page.HTM
(e-mail address removed)
 
Hi,

I've used both. I've got been able to burn at 4X with either. Despite
what Chris is saying both USB 2 and IEE1394 deliver about the same rates of
data in real time.
However, If you have any intention of using your enclosure for video
capture with a hdd then I'd recommend that it have firewire in addition to
the USB for asynchroneous transmission of data (back and forth), for
capturing video, as you won't be able to do it that with USB2 alone.
Consider also, that with having an enclosure with both you'll have a bit
more versatility in being able to connect a second way if for some reason
the USB or the firewire doesn't work.
 
Hi,

I've used both. I've got been able to burn at 4X with either. Despite
what Chris is saying both USB 2 and IEE1394 deliver about the same rates of
data in real time.
However, If you have any intention of using your enclosure for video
capture with a hdd then I'd recommend that it have firewire in addition to
the USB for asynchroneous transmission of data (back and forth), for
capturing video, as you won't be able to do it that with USB2 alone.
Consider also, that with having an enclosure with both you'll have a bit
more versatility in being able to connect a second way if for some reason
the USB or the firewire doesn't work.
 
Here's some of the comments of my personal experience FWIW:

I have used both ways of connection with my 4x dvd/rw drives as well as hard
drives in external cases. I have also used a 8x nec 2510a drive. The
computer is a abit nf7s v2.0 with a 2500xp+ mobile clocked at 3200 speeds
and a gig of ram. So much for the bragging.

Using firewire and a hard drive, the sustained transfer speed is faster with
IEEE1394A than USB 2.0 without question.

Using USB 2.0 the speed is slower but on the other hand you will find more
people equipped with USB on average than you will IEEE1394A compatibilty. In
other words pretty much with MS machines USB is more popular than
firewire.(sticking my neck way out there) You will notice that most computer
stores are overflowing with USB accessories and lack in firewire stuff
unless you are in a Macintosh store. The difference in speed I would
estimate at about 35 - 50% faster with firewire being the winner. That is
hard drives, external cases and Pc's.

Now with optical drives, the main difference I have seen between the 2
styles is negligible if the unit is being fed a good USB 2.0 signal at least
with UDMA33 optical devices. I personally had slow operation and insane
buffer dips with USB on my front ports because the case did not have a good
enough front panel connection system. I was running in USB 1.0 or 1.1 until
I put in a USB 2.0/IEEE1394A front panel port accessory made for fitting
into a floppy drive bay from the Koutech company through Newegg for about
$12. I then noticed and enjoyed a dramatic difference in speeds. Everything
was set correctly in my computer's bios for USB 2.0 etc for those reading
who have the desire to nitpick my rant.

I just burned some dvds earlier today and using Nero the nero buffer did not
dip below 99% using either firewire or the USB 2.0. So basically it boils
down to either style for an optical device but use firewire for hard drives
if possible. This of course is all based on my own personal experience and
the experiences of several fellows in my computer buddy group. We have all
come to the same conclusion without reservation. I use Abit Amd boards and
they use other brands such as MSI with amd cpu or ASUS Intel based boards.

It is critical to have a good USB 2.0 port working. Just because the box or
manual for your machine says it has USB 2.0 does not mean it is actually
working as it should be.

To use USB 1.0 or 1.0 for anything would be an excercise in futilty as far
as I'm concerned, so check your ports and bios etc. Try plugging into a rear
port where the USB 2.0 is almost always gauranteed to work correctly. If
your machine is old enough to have only USB 1.0, then go buy a USB 2.0 card
and install it. They are pretty inexpensive. $10 or so USD.

Also be aware that for me at least if I want to upgrade my dvd firmware, I
must put the drive temporarily on my motherboard ide controller and flash
the thing using a win98 boot floppy since I haven't found a flasher that
will cooperate while the drive is mounted in my external cases.

Oh yeah I also noticed that with firewire and a optical device it comes up
as (insert your firewire chip manufacturer here) SBP2 device in the optical
device area. With USB it usually says something like DVD or CD DD0203
Optodisk USB device (my drive's name) which seems to describe the device
better. The burns are equally good with either style of data transfer in my
systems.

It is also my opinion that microsoft is supporting USB devices full throttle
where Macintosh seems much better known for firewire. Maybe some leftover
hostility between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and we pay the price?. I really
don't know, but what I see in the real world is what counts I guess.

I have a gnawing feeling that tells me your friend's machine is not giving
him a nice plump USB 2.0 signal to keep the burn buffer stacked. If all that
is confusing then the comment "if the drive has to wait for data to flow the
burn will be slow" may get you on the right track.

So that's pretty much what I have learned about the issue.

Best of luck in your adventure.

Regards, Bob Troll
 
Using USB 2.0 the speed is slower but on the other hand you will find more
people equipped with USB on average than you will IEEE1394A compatibilty. In
other words pretty much with MS machines USB is more popular than
firewire.(sticking my neck way out there) You will notice that most computer
stores are overflowing with USB accessories and lack in firewire stuff
unless you are in a Macintosh store.
Click to expand...

I remember when Firewire came out, Apple tried to charge PC makers
a high fee per port to use it. That killed Fireware on the PC,
effectively, and made USB the tranfer mode of choice. PC makers
were scared of being dependent on Apple, who could raise its
licensing fees at the drop of a hat. They didn't want to get
locked into Firewire.
 
Bad Bubba said:
Does anyone have one of those external HD enclosures that supports both
Fireware and USB2?

Have you tried it with both? Which is "actually" faster?

A friend of mine switched from an external USB2 DVD burner to an
external Firewire DVD burner and he says that he's able to burn at 4x
now with the Firewire and was limited to 2x with the USB2.

Not that I don't trust him, but I want to make sure that Firewire is
definitely faster for external drives before I get one.

--Dave
Click to expand...

I find these figures unreal and if you google so do the IEEE, they these
results that a firewire harddrive would out perform a USB2 Harddrive only if
a NON USB2 cable was used, like 80 wire IDE cables which have 40 screening
wires USB2 cables have screening round each wire to stop cross talk they are
not the same as USB 1.1 cables and the logo on the packet should tell you it
is USB2 as stated in my original post. If you buy a product that tells you
it is USB2 and it does not have the logo then I can guarantee it is not up
to the spec of the IEEE and USB standards laid down by all the big
manufacturers.
This is a copy and paste from the official USB web site, no way can
IEEE1394A reach speeds of 480Mb/s.
"The USB-IFÕs recommended nomenclature for
consumers is ÒUSBÓ for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and
ÒHi-Speed USBÓ for high-speed products (480Mb/s), as signified in the USB
logos that were introduced in late 2000.Ê In short, consumers wishing to be
certain they are getting the performance they paid for in their USB products
can use the logo for clarification."


Chris
Technical director CKCCOMPUSCRIPT
Apple Computers, Intel, Roland audio, ATI, Microsoft, Sun Solaris, Cisco and
Silicone Graphics.
Wholesale distributor and specialist audio visual computers and servers
FREE SUPPORT @,
http://www.ckccomp.plus.com/site/page.HTM
(e-mail address removed)
 
I've used both. I've got been able to burn at 4X with either. Despite
what Chris is saying both USB 2 and IEE1394 deliver about the same rates of
data in real time.
Click to expand...

That's what I have read. USB2 specs are higher, but in real life the
performance is about the same for most operations.
However, If you have any intention of using your enclosure for video
capture with a hdd then I'd recommend that it have firewire in addition to
the USB for asynchroneous transmission of data (back and forth), for
capturing video, as you won't be able to do it that with USB2 alone.
Consider also, that with having an enclosure with both you'll have a bit
more versatility in being able to connect a second way if for some reason
the USB or the firewire doesn't work.
Click to expand...

I do video capture to an internal 200 GB drive. I mostly want the
external drive for backup and storing less-often used files (video
clips, images, MP3's, etc.)

--Dave
 
I find these figures unreal and if you google so do the IEEE, they these
results that a firewire harddrive would out perform a USB2 Harddrive onlyif
a NON USB2 cable was used, like 80 wire IDE cables which have 40 screening
wires USB2 cables have screening round each wire to stop cross talk they are
not the same as USB 1.1 cables and the logo on the packet should tell youit
is USB2 as stated in my original post. If you buy a product that tells you
it is USB2 and it does not have the logo then I can guarantee it is not up
to the spec of the IEEE and USB standards laid down by all the big
manufacturers.
This is a copy and paste from the official USB web site, no way can
IEEE1394A reach speeds of 480Mb/s.
"The USB-IFÕs recommended nomenclature for
consumers is ÒUSBÓ for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and
ÒHi-Speed USBÓ for high-speed products (480Mb/s), as signified in theUSB
logos that were introduced in late 2000.Ê In short, consumers wishing to be
certain they are getting the performance they paid for in their USB products
can use the logo for clarification."
Click to expand...

It was only $25 more for a dual enclosure, so I'll test things myself
when it arrives.

My understanding from what I have read (I just spent an hour on Tom's
Hardware) is that USB2 has a higher "spec" than Firewire but in
practical application they are about dead even.

--Dave
 
From my recent experience with all these external enclosures I would offer
at least one point of advice. If you put a larger than 128gb drive into the
case make absolutely sure that your OS is set up for 48bit LBA addressing.
As I understand it, SP2 as well as SP1 for win xp is supposed to be all set
up but in the case of a number of SP1 systems I have seen the opposite was
true in the real world. Most if not all drive manufacturers are aware of
this issue and have a tool available to make sure your registry is properly
set up for the 48 bit addressing. The tool runs and will set the registry if
needed or report all is just fine. Then you can safely carry on. You can do
that part now today before you ever see your new enclosure as it should be
done anyway.

If for example you put in a "new unformatted" 200 gb drive in your ext case
and fire up disk management, very carefully observe if the drive is being
detected at it's full capacity. If you slip in a LARGE drive (over 128gb)
that was previously formatted on your mainboard ide controller for example,
the flaw will not be noticed until you start doing some transfers with large
or numerous files to or from it. If the flaw exists then your drive will
become corrupted and you will start scratching your head like the rest of us
have been. Do not use the disk overlay software that most if not all hard
drives come with as that will foul you up as well.

Seriously, look into the 48 bit LBA issue with win xp or ? and make sure as
you can that all is well before you add your name to the growing list of
disgruntled people.

A brand new unformatted large drive in the external case when viewed in disk
management will display one of two possible capacities to you. It will
either display as 128gb or the true size of the drive such as 200gb. If it
displays the full size then you are all set. If it shows 128gb, then stop
and fix your 48 bit lba before you go any further and most importantly do
not start the formatting process with the disk wizard or your large drive
will become a 128 drive. If you screw it up it can be fixed by attaching the
drive to the motherboard ide controller, running the drive utility software,
zero out the drive and try it again in the external case.

The bottom line to all that is to place the new large drive in the external
case unformatted so that you can tell if all is well or not BEFORE you foul
it up. Do yourself a favor and do not format it first on your mainboard
before placing it into the ext case. It will make your life easier in the
end.

Keep in mind that when you take your drive over to your cousin's house, his
machine must also support the LBA mode properly or you WILL most likely
corrupt it over there, so be forewarned.

In the case of an optical device the issue is nonexistent. The problem only
shows up with hard drives.

I specifically bought a 120gb hd to use in my ext case to make sure I will
be safe wherever I go.

Regards, Bob Troll
 
My understanding is that usb 2.0 is only better on paper. You don't get the
theoretical throughput in either system but firewire has less cpu overhead.
This basically means that firewire gets closer to its theoretical limit than
usb 2.0. Much closer relatively speaking as the theoretical speed limit is
closer. It may be a duplexing thing. usb2.0 may only maintain high
throughput in one direction at a time.

I beleive there was a similar problem with ethernet. Alot of cheaper
ethernet boards ran from the cpu instead of having a proper hardware
controller on the board. usb on the mainboard may be the problem here.
Firewire may be more easily integrated or the setup more robust. As an
earlier poster mentioned correctly setup pc won't notice much difference
between the two.

Finally the vast majority of camcorders are firewire. Video editing is
exceedingly demanding of data transfer rates. Manufacturer confidence is
with firewire. Considering the ubiquitous pc and usb 2.0 partnership there
must be a pressing reason. Also the independent dvd recorders have 4 pin
firewire and usb. Is this merely due to the predominance of firewire as a
standard or is it cos usb is a pc thing. It would certainly sustain my
theory that firewire is a more robust protocol with easier implementation of
hardware controllers without the need of a cpu.
 
Mr. Jessop, I would have to agree with you about the "on paper" part. I will
for your convenience cite a couple of example test results for your perusal
of real world events.

Using a combo USB 2.0 / IEEE1394A enclosure I perfromed a read test using HD
Tach 2.70 as I didn't have v 3.0 yet with a 80gb WD SE IDE 8mb cache drive.
This enclosure is a PPA model using a Prolifiic 3507 chipset. I have been
involved in a discussion of this enclosure and others using this chipset for
a number of months on the firmware forum page. We have garnered a number of
updated firmwares for this beast as well. The firmwares are about as common
as hen's teeh to find if you've ever attempted to hunt one down. We have
also discussed the boxes equipped with the oxford 911 chipset. They are not
as perfect as others may suggest either. They suffer from exactly the same
problems as well with large hard drives. FWIW the 80gb never had any
problems other than it's storage capacity. IE: no failures etc. The failures
and corruptions began when I first installed a 250gb wd drive in the box.
Then all hell broke loose. The LBA registry adjustment solved that, but I am
so gun-shy I decided to just get a new 120gb to put in the box and forget
about it. On a side note I have a Pioneer 106D 4x DVD/RW mounted in another
box and using firwire while burning Nero 6 uses 3% system resources. The
burn buffer stays at no less than 96% throughout the process. I pulled all
my burners out of my systems and just use them in the external cases so I
can't tell you honestly what the resource usage was like when the drives
were inside my computer case. It does help a little with case temps with the
burner out though.

The rsults of the USB/FW war were:

USB 2.0 Max. 17.5 Min. 4.3 Average 14.9 /Mb/s

IEEE1394A Max 31 Min 20.4 Average 28.5 /Mb/s

I was most interested in the minimum number as that would be more closely
related to sustained speed and is what we really want in the real world.
There is no question in my mind whatever that firewire is faster than usb2.0
as I use the drives in my everyday course of activity.

I think some of the same individuals who carry on about numbers on paper get
themselves a 52x spin cd rom drive so they can listen to their cd's at 1x.
Numbers mean very little to me. I only want to know what I can reasonably
expect the thing to do and be done with it.

My main objective is to safely and as quickly as possible transfer large
amounts of data in one stroke.

Regards, Bob "hopelessly insane machine warrior" Troll

PS: It was also very refreshing to have an intelligent response come after
my initial diatribe..... :)
 
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