USB2 faster than Firewire
Barry Twycross
<MLFra...@aol.com> wrote:
> I thought Firewire was much slower than USB 2.0 ???
>
> Can a balanced (read non-Macaholic) please enlighten us all on this?
I don't know where the idea of "much" slower would come from. As
pointed out the raw bit rates of the connection are 400Mb/s for
FireWire (1394a) and 480Mb/s for USB2, "much" doesn't seem to come into
that. Also the latest version of FireWire (1394b) adds 800Mb/s and
1.6Gb/s, but only the 800 version has been implimented yet.
Raw bit rates don't tell the whole story. FireWire people I know reckon
that about 35MB/s is what you'll get out of the fastest FireWire
devices. For USB, the transfer rates are limited by the host controller
implimentation. The current crop of controllers max out in the
20-24MB/s range.
Currently FireWire is most probably the faster technology.
The next generation of USB host controller is promising to up the
transfer rates into the 35-40MB/s range. I've seen one manage 31MB/s,
which was limited by the hard drive it was attached to. That controller
should be able to manage 39MB/s with a faster device.
I don't know how fast a FireWire 800 device would be able to manage in
reality, presumably a little faster than the current version.
In Future FireWire will probably continue to be the faster technology.
All of these transfer rates are so much faster than the cf device in
the original question, its hardly worth worrying about.
--
Barry
Ba...@netbox.com <http://www.netbox.com/barry>
------
(I should put something down here).
Howard McCollister
than Firewire 400. Look at http://tinyurl.com/ef28 for some testing on that.
Firewire 800 is now standard on Macs (at least some of them) and Firewire
800 PCI host controllers are available for PC and Macs for $89 or less.
HMc
"Barry Twycross" <ba...@netbox.com> wrote in message
news:150620032330475587%ba...@netbox.com...
JimL
Good stuff here. Thanks.
I usually go with the cheap and mass produced stuff which means USB,
but I'm going to look seriously at a combo FireWire/USB2 motherboard
on my next purchase.
JimL
On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 06:30:47 GMT, Barry Twycross <ba...@netbox.com>
wrote:
Mark Leuck
"Howard McCollister" <hm...@emily.net> wrote in message
news:3eedb176$0$87200$45be...@newscene.com...
> Theoretical numbers notwithstanding, USB 2.0 is actually quite a bit
slower
> than Firewire 400. Look at http://tinyurl.com/ef28 for some testing on
that.
>
> Firewire 800 is now standard on Macs (at least some of them) and Firewire
> 800 PCI host controllers are available for PC and Macs for $89 or less.
>
> HMc
I should think Firewire would be standard on Macs since they developed it,
the biggest problem tho is Apple is charging a higher royalty for Firewire
than Intel charges for USB which is why these days you see more USB.
Bruce Murphy
> "Howard McCollister" <hm...@emily.net> wrote in message
> news:3eedb176$0$87200$45be...@newscene.com...
> > Theoretical numbers notwithstanding, USB 2.0 is actually quite a bit
> slower
> > than Firewire 400. Look at http://tinyurl.com/ef28 for some testing on
> that.
> >
> > Firewire 800 is now standard on Macs (at least some of them) and Firewire
> > 800 PCI host controllers are available for PC and Macs for $89 or less.
>
> I should think Firewire would be standard on Macs since they developed it,
> the biggest problem tho is Apple is charging a higher royalty for Firewire
> than Intel charges for USB which is why these days you see more USB.
And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
because it's a few cents cheaper?
B>
Jason O'Rourke
>> I should think Firewire would be standard on Macs since they developed it,
>> the biggest problem tho is Apple is charging a higher royalty for Firewire
>> than Intel charges for USB which is why these days you see more USB.
>
>And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
>because it's a few cents cheaper?
USB1 solved a different problem than firewire. Serial was becoming a PITA,
with the need for 16550 UARTS and resource requirements. You'll keep in
mind that macs use both usb and firewire.
With the interface already in place, it was a natural and quick progression
to putting these storage devices on it, and later the need for much more
performance. You can install firewire cards for less than $30 and it comes
standard on a few motherboards, but unless you have a DV setup, you don't
have a need. Unlike most Macs, PCs have bays for additional hard drives
and so the need for high speed external storage is greatly reduced.
--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com
Bruce Murphy
> Bruce Murphy <pack...@rattus.net> wrote:
> >> I should think Firewire would be standard on Macs since they developed it,
> >> the biggest problem tho is Apple is charging a higher royalty for Firewire
> >> than Intel charges for USB which is why these days you see more USB.
> >
> >And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
> >because it's a few cents cheaper?
>
> USB1 solved a different problem than firewire. Serial was becoming a PITA,
> with the need for 16550 UARTS and resource requirements. You'll keep in
> mind that macs use both usb and firewire.
There's no point in putting firewire on a mouse, indeed.
> With the interface already in place, it was a natural and quick progression
> to putting these storage devices on it, and later the need for much more
> performance.
CD writers, hard drives, and various other things should have never been
sold with USB interfaces. Fortunately, most of the people who bought them
have learned this important lesson.
> You can install firewire cards for less than $30 and it comes
> standard on a few motherboards, but unless you have a DV setup, you don't
> have a need. Unlike most Macs,
What? You mean laptops and the all-in-one compact style macs? I think
you should have a look at the newer generation of PC cases.
> PCs have bays for additional hard drives
> and so the need for high speed external storage is greatly reduced.
This also is a myth. Unless you like gutting your machine to move
storage around, waiting an age for scanners, etc, there are lots of
things for which firewire is very useful.
PC owners think that external hard drives aren't needed becuase they
don't have the opportunity to use them, thanks to IDE (spit).
B>
Jason O'Rourke
>CD writers, hard drives, and various other things should have never been
>sold with USB interfaces. Fortunately, most of the people who bought them
>have learned this important lesson.
I always avoided IDE burners too, and used SCSI, but eventually gave up
on the myth as implemenations matured. USB external devices, esp storage,
makes a lot of sense as virtually every machine out there now has USB1 or 2
ports.
>> PCs have bays for additional hard drives
>> and so the need for high speed external storage is greatly reduced.
>
>This also is a myth. Unless you like gutting your machine to move
>storage around, waiting an age for scanners, etc, there are lots of
>things for which firewire is very useful.
My scanner doesn't have FW, predates its mass use by 6 months or a
year. I'm not going to replace a perfectly good nikon scanner (IV) to
get a bit more speed. The only reason I'd get it is to do video.
>PC owners think that external hard drives aren't needed becuase they
>don't have the opportunity to use them, thanks to IDE (spit).
I saw pull out IDE drive setups back in the early 90s, running about
$40 per unit. It's nothing new.
Bruce Murphy
> Bruce Murphy <pack...@rattus.net> wrote:
> >CD writers, hard drives, and various other things should have never been
> >sold with USB interfaces. Fortunately, most of the people who bought them
> >have learned this important lesson.
>
> I always avoided IDE burners too, and used SCSI, but eventually gave up
> on the myth as implemenations matured. USB external devices, esp storage,
> makes a lot of sense as virtually every machine out there now has USB1 or 2
> ports.
And if they've got a SiS implementation, ports that don't actually
work. Read the documentation for your scanner if you don't believe me.
> >> PCs have bays for additional hard drives
> >> and so the need for high speed external storage is greatly reduced.
> >
> >This also is a myth. Unless you like gutting your machine to move
> >storage around, waiting an age for scanners, etc, there are lots of
> >things for which firewire is very useful.
>
> My scanner doesn't have FW, predates its mass use by 6 months or a
> year. I'm not going to replace a perfectly good nikon scanner (IV) to
> get a bit more speed. The only reason I'd get it is to do video.
Actually the IV came out at the same time as the 4000 and 8000, both of
which had FW. (And which came with a FW card)
> >PC owners think that external hard drives aren't needed becuase they
> >don't have the opportunity to use them, thanks to IDE (spit).
>
> I saw pull out IDE drive setups back in the early 90s, running about
> $40 per unit. It's nothing new.
_external_. Not 'removeable'. The unterminated 40cm length bus on IDE is
really poorly designed (except to be tolerant for use by stupid people
I guess)
B>
Barry Twycross
<spunk_...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> The other thing to take into account is that both of these technologies
> are serial, so devices share the available throughput.
That's nothing to do with them being serial, its the same for every bus
I can think of whether its serial, parallel or something else. Its the
nature of a bus.
Barry Twycross
<pack...@rattus.net> wrote:
> "Mark Leuck" <m..leuck@attbi.com> writes:
> > I should think Firewire would be standard on Macs since they developed it,
> > the biggest problem tho is Apple is charging a higher royalty for Firewire
> > than Intel charges for USB which is why these days you see more USB.
>
> And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
> because it's a few cents cheaper?
Its more than a few cents, its 25 cents.
FireWire costs 25c a system to licence, USB is a flat fee of $1500
(possibly for ever) or maybe $2600 a year.
Bruce Murphy
> In article <m2brwuz...@fuscipes.rattus.net>, Bruce Murphy
> <pack...@rattus.net> wrote:
>
> > "Mark Leuck" <m..leuck@attbi.com> writes:
>
> > > I should think Firewire would be standard on Macs since they developed it,
> > > the biggest problem tho is Apple is charging a higher royalty for Firewire
> > > than Intel charges for USB which is why these days you see more USB.
> >
> > And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
> > because it's a few cents cheaper?
>
> Its more than a few cents, its 25 cents.
>
> FireWire costs 25c a system to licence, USB is a flat fee of $1500
> (possibly for ever) or maybe $2600 a year.
Thank you. THe PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product becusae
it's almost 25 cents cheaper if they produce enough of them.
B>
Bill Tuthill
>>
>> And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
>> because it's a few cents cheaper?
>
> Its more than a few cents, its 25 cents.
>
> FireWire costs 25c a system to licence, USB is a flat fee of $1500
> (possibly for ever) or maybe $2600 a year.
Who collects the 25c royalty? I thought Firewire had become a standard,
IEEE 1394, which appears to be available on Linux (www.linux1394.org)
for free or perhaps with copyleft, I dunno.
Why can't the PC vendors reimplement it as did the Linux community?
Bruce Murphy
This would be hardware licencing by the people (Apple, presumably) who
ensure that people making firewire implementations can actuallly talk to
one another. Precisely what doesn't happen with USB.
B>
Jason O'Rourke
>Who collects the 25c royalty? I thought Firewire had become a standard,
>IEEE 1394, which appears to be available on Linux (www.linux1394.org)
>for free or perhaps with copyleft, I dunno.
>
>Why can't the PC vendors reimplement it as did the Linux community?
Because there is no need. USB2 does the job and supports usb1 devices
as well. Firewire will be used for video purposes as needed, may be
challenged by DVI. Both will be niche markets on the desktop.
Bruce Murphy
For 'the job' read 'mouse and suchlike'. Now let's talk about being
able to move disks around easily etc.
B>
Jason O'Rourke
>> Because there is no need. USB2 does the job and supports usb1 devices
>> as well. Firewire will be used for video purposes as needed, may be
>> challenged by DVI. Both will be niche markets on the desktop.
>
>For 'the job' read 'mouse and suchlike'. Now let's talk about being
>able to move disks around easily etc.
Bruce, you're parroting the same bullshit over and over.
USB2 based drives are just as portable as firewire ones. And both
interfaces are fast enough for available hard drives.
Bruce Murphy
In theory, perhaps. But having heard exactly the same statement made
about USB 1.1, I think I'll not leap onto this particular bandwagon
either.
USB is, and will always be, a poorly implemented, poorly designed,
cheap and nasty technology. Thank you again, Intel. I'm made
particularly happy by the USB 2 standard not requiring compatibility
with 1.1 devices[1], and with the number fo semiconductors manufacturers
who baulked at producing controller chipsets for it.
B>
[1] last time I checked it was a Jolly Good Thing, but optional.
David Eppstein
Bruce Murphy <pack...@rattus.net> wrote:
> USB is, and will always be, a poorly implemented, poorly designed,
> cheap and nasty technology.
You left out poorly marketed. In case you weren't already confused
enough about USB 1.1 vs USB 2, now the USB people are redefining the
specs so that both can be called USB 2 -- see
<http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/18/2025210>. One of the two
USB 2's is full speed, the other is high speed. I'll leave you to
guess which one you have to ask for if you want firewire-like speed, or
what fraction of consumers will guess wrong and be left with the
impression that USB 2 is still slow.
--
David Eppstein http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Univ. of California, Irvine, School of Information & Computer Science
Alan Browne
You guys figure this still needs to be x-posted to rec.photo?
Tesselator
"David Eppstein" <epps...@ics.uci.edu> wrote in message news:eppstein-D4151D...@news.service.uci.edu...
> In article <m28yrwy...@fuscipes.rattus.net>,
> Bruce Murphy <pack...@rattus.net> wrote:
>
> > USB is, and will always be, a poorly implemented, poorly designed,
> > cheap and nasty technology.
>
> You left out poorly marketed. In case you weren't already confused
> enough about USB 1.1 vs USB 2, now the USB people are redefining the
> specs so that both can be called USB 2 -- see
> <http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/18/2025210>. One of the two
> USB 2's is full speed, the other is high speed. I'll leave you to
> guess which one you have to ask for if you want firewire-like speed, or
> what fraction of consumers will guess wrong and be left with the
> impression that USB 2 is still slow.
I don't think either of the two are fast enough for hard disk i/o !
For me something like Fibre Channel (HotSwap) with >20gig/sec
capasity, is the the minimun "portable storage" interface spec.
I want my 50MB/sec (_sustained_ throughput) guaranteed!
I personally would never consider hooking up an HD to a firewire
or USB2 unless it was a laptop or something. Kid-stuff.
( :-D
> --
> David Eppstein http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
> Univ. of California, Irvine, School of Information & Computer Science
Hey, My old school! Awesome! Frisbee-Golf anyone? O :-)
Barry Twycross
<ca_cr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Barry Twycross <ba...@netbox.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> And not becuase the PC industry inevitably picks the crappy product
> >> because it's a few cents cheaper?
> >
> > Its more than a few cents, its 25 cents.
> >
> > FireWire costs 25c a system to licence, USB is a flat fee of $1500
> > (possibly for ever) or maybe $2600 a year.
>
> Who collects the 25c royalty?
The 1394 licencing association. <http://www.1394la.com>.
> I thought Firewire had become a standard, IEEE 1394, which appears to
> be available on Linux (www.linux1394.org) for free or perhaps with
> copyleft, I dunno.
The hardware's already payed the licence. System is hardware system,
not software.
Just because something's standard doesn't mean its not got patent
issues. Other technologies have similar licencing schemesm try the MPEG
licencing association. <http://www.mpegla.com>
Charles V. Stancampiano
Charlie
"Mark Leuck" <m..leuck@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:CEcIa.985014$OV.1092233@rwcrnsc54...
Mark Leuck
"Bill Tuthill" <ca_cr...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:vf6ibk9...@corp.supernews.com...
It's because of the license fee that more motherboards/devices use USB over
Firewire
z
wrote:
I believe that USB is faster going between multiple devices,
but Firewire is faster for a streaming application with no bus
contention.
But for the answer to what is on the motherboard, see above
Barry Twycross
wrote:
> I believe that USB is faster going between multiple devices,
That sounds unlikely. A USB device can only talk to the host. If you
want to get data from one device to another the host has to read it
from one and write it to the other, the data has to be transferred
twice. FireWire can transfer data from any device on the bus to any
other device with only one transfer.
Or did you mean something else?
Picopirate
"Tesselator" <jimm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bcvvl0$kvd$1...@catv02.starcat.ne.jp...
>
> I personally would never consider hooking up an HD to a firewire
> or USB2 unless it was a laptop or something. Kid-stuff.
>
Why not? Actually I find them more valuable for people who DONT have
laptops. Its the ultimate in portable storage. Keep all your files on your
USB2 HD and you can easily have access to them on you home computer, your
work/school computer, your friends computer, etc. Many of my coworkers have
USB2 HDs and keep their music, photos, etc on them so they can listen to
their music at home or work w/o having to carry around all their CDs. They
also back up their work on the HD so they have access to their files at home
w/o having to VPN into the office network.
Ron Hunter
Pretty cheap too. Saw a 60GB USB 2.0 HD at CompUSA for only $130.
Pretty tempting for backup.
list...@nospam.net
bought a Maxtor 250gb external HD with both USB2.0 & Firewire. It's
fast and works flawlessly.
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 21:38:45 -0500, "Picopirate" <pico...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Mark M
"Ron Hunter" <rphu...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:voa70lb...@corp.supernews.com...
Costco has an external 120GB Firewire/USB2 HD right now (Maxtor 7200RPM)
for $179!
These are great drives. I have two of them connected to my laptop as I type
this...
Alan Browne
Mark M wrote:
>>Pretty cheap too. Saw a 60GB USB 2.0 HD at CompUSA for only $130.
>>Pretty tempting for backup.
>
>
> Costco has an external 120GB Firewire/USB2 HD right now (Maxtor 7200RPM)
> for $179!
> These are great drives. I have two of them connected to my laptop as I type
> this...
Ah, yes, I thought there was something about the way your e-mail looked,
that explains it.
Mark M
"Alan Browne" <"Alan Browne"@videotron.canospam> wrote in message
news:r5nhb.18775$nh4.2...@weber.videotron.net...
Huh???
Ron Hunter
laptop)? What do you DO with that space?
Mark M
> > for $179!
> > These are great drives. I have two of them connected to my laptop as I
type
> > this...
> >
> >
> You need more than 240 GB (the two plus whatever you have in the
> laptop)? What do you DO with that space?
You'd be surprised what 35,000 Canon 10D/D30 RAW images can fill after
they've been processed into full depth tif files...and...slide scans of
50-100MB PER IMAGE add up to...
Ron Hunter
matter? Of course, you could just keep buying more storage, I guess.
Imagine how much space those pictures would be taking up on even 35 mm film!
Jason O'Rourke
>>>>Costco has an external 120GB Firewire/USB2 HD right now (Maxtor 7200RPM)
>>>>for $179!
>>>>These are great drives. I have two of them connected to my laptop as I
>> You'd be surprised what 35,000 Canon 10D/D30 RAW images can fill after
>> they've been processed into full depth tif files...and...slide scans of
>> 50-100MB PER IMAGE add up to...
>Haven't you ever heard of compression, or the delete key, for that
>matter? Of course, you could just keep buying more storage, I guess.
>Imagine how much space those pictures would be taking up on even 35 mm film!
Ron, maybe his time is worth more than your's? He found a solution that
costs less than $400. So long as he has a organization that keeps track
of all the images, it's likely to be much more cost effective to keep
the stuff. You could spent weeks deciding what should go or stay. And
compression -- why would someone who amassed 35k images think about
degrading them that way?
Mark M
> >>laptop)? What do you DO with that space?
> >
> >
> > You'd be surprised what 35,000 Canon 10D/D30 RAW images can fill after
> > they've been processed into full depth tif files...and...slide scans of
> > 50-100MB PER IMAGE add up to...
> >
> >
> Haven't you ever heard of compression, or the delete key, for that
> matter? Of course, you could just keep buying more storage, I guess.
When I can store photos as cheaply as I can today, I see little reason to
delete many files. I certainly delete obvious goofs, or shots that clearly
hold zero potential on first glance...but you might be surprised at the
number of times I've gone back to image folders I've long since assumed to
be useless, only to discover some real gems that were at first dismissed in
my haste or temporary disinterest.
C J D
> Ron, maybe his time is worth more than your's? He found a solution that
> costs less than $400. So long as he has a organization that keeps track
> of all the images, it's likely to be much more cost effective to keep
> the stuff. You could spent weeks deciding what should go or stay. And
> compression -- why would someone who amassed 35k images think about
> degrading them that way?
He means file compression, like .zip, not image compression.
Colin D.
Ron Hunter
Compression using LZW with Huffman coding does not in any way degrade an
image, it just saves a LOT of storage space. If the pictures are stored
in uncompressed .TIFF format, the savings can be up to 90%, depending on
the subject matter.
Tesselator
"Picopirate" <pico...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3f84ca0b$1...@newspeer2.tds.net...
Oh. :-/
Yeah that makes sense. I wasn't thinking about protability, just proformance.
You're right I think tho... If you wanna tote stuff here and there a Jazz
drive or FireWire/USB HDD would probably be the way to go.
Alan Browne
Mark M wrote:
...a bit of humour
Mark M
7200RPM)
> >>>for $179!
> >>>These are great drives. I have two of them connected to my laptop as I
> >
> > type
> >
> >>>this...
> >>
> >>
> >>Ah, yes, I thought there was something about the way your e-mail looked,
> >>that explains it.
> >
> >
> > Huh???
>
> ...a bit of humour
Ah... I just had a vision of two hard-drives hanging off of a hand-held
laptop...
Deathwalker
I've never acheived more than 50% compression using tiff compression in
photoshop.
Ron Hunter
A lot depends on just what the subject matter is. Lots of sky, pretty
good compression, lots of grass/trees, almost none. That's why JPEG
came along.
Jason O'Rourke
image files do not compress well. And while compressed tiffs are a bit
smaller (and we don't know that his weren't in that form), it's not
a big savings - less than 50%. Still not worth any extra effort.