USB 2.0 or Firewire

[kenmo]

Is there a preference of one over the other when it comes to external DVD burners...

In another thread I commented on a problem I have with an ide DVD burner moved to an external firewire case... Since the external case supports both firewire & USB, I was thinking on moving it to USB...

Cheers

Kenmo

[SingSing]

I have a sony external also have both interfaces.
I ended using USB, becuase it is easier for cabling.

[ROF]

I have an external case with both 1394/USB connections. I use it with an NEC3550 burner and use the USB connection. When I use the firewire I get an erratic buffer status.

Switching to USB may relieve your problems.

[garryheather]

USB2 is also a bit faster than Firewire, although there is some evidence that a dedicated channel (ie not going through hubs and wotnot) will help if you use USB.

I've got an NEC 4551 in an external enclosure on USB2 and it works perfectly.

[Bodyslide]

I have a Pioneer 108 in an external case with both firewire and usb2. I use the Usb more than firewire. No real difference for me in either one.

[dipstick]

garryheather wrote:

USB2 is also a bit faster than Firewire

Wrong!
Firewire is much faster. It's not even close. Here's a benchmark test done with my Laptop HDD vs External HDD in USB2.0 and Firewire conection:


fulltest.png

[edDV]

garryheather wrote:

USB2 is also a bit faster than Firewire

Wrong!
Firewire is much faster. It's not even close. Here's a benchmark test done with my Laptop HDD vs External HDD in USB2.0 and Firewire conection:


fulltest.png

A DVD writer doesn't need much speed. Even at 16x it only needs sustained 22Mb/s but writers work in bursts so figure 100Mb/s (12.5MB/s) tops. This is well within either USB2 or IEEE-1394.

I prefer USB2 for my writer because IEEE-1394 under DirectShow seems to still have contention issues unless you unplug everything else.

Maybe someone can suggest a way to manage multiple IEEE-1394 devices under DirectShow. By that I mean a mix of drives, camcorders, MPeg2_TS devices and networking over IEEE-1394 each on their own port.

[garryheather]

garryheather wrote:

USB2 is also a bit faster than Firewire

Wrong!
Firewire is much faster. It's not even close. Here's a benchmark test done with my Laptop HDD vs External HDD in USB2.0 and Firewire conection:


fulltest.png

Sorry, mate - YOU are wrong. Firewire has a theoretical transfer rate of a stonking 1600Mb/s but currently only reaches 400Mb/s. USB-2 will reach 480Mb/s. If you don't hang multiple devices off of a single port, the transfer rate of a properly configured USB-2 device IS faster than firewire.

The issue is how good the chipset is that's going from USB-2 to IDE in an external enclosure more than anything else, but I stand by my original statement. You're talking about how your laptop performs. I'm talking specs. We all know they can differ "in the real world". If you want to give a writer (or external hard disk for that matter) the best chance of performing to its full potential, you need to maintain the maximum data rate to the bridging chipset. Not all are created equal. But then neither are the drives. Then there's the bridging in the host PC... your milage may vary but the specs favour USB-2 for now.

One thing to all concerned - most manufacturers advise against flashing firmware on external drives since you can't reset the bus in the same way that you can on an IDE channel, and as such flashing the firmware can be a bit hit or miss.

[Steve Stepoway]

garryheather wrote:

USB2 is also a bit faster than Firewire

Wrong!
Firewire is much faster. It's not even close. Here's a benchmark test done with my Laptop HDD vs External HDD in USB2.0 and Firewire conection:


fulltest.png

Sorry, mate - YOU are wrong. Firewire has a theoretical transfer rate of a stonking 1600Mb/s but currently only reaches 400Mb/s. USB-2 will reach 480Mb/s. ...

You're talking about how your laptop performs. I'm talking specs. We all know they can differ "in the real world".

You are both right, and you are both wrong. In theory USB2 has a (slightly) higher max bitrate than Firewire/400. If you are using it in the lab, testing max data transfer rates, USB2 will be faster.

But I don't know many people who do that. Most of us transfer real files between real devices. All the tests that I've seen indicate that, in real life, firewire is faster.

"The difference between theory and real life is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and real life, while in real life, there is." -- variously attributed to man people

Steve

[edDV]

Dipstick's link
fulltest.png
matches my experience with USB2 and Firewire external drives. The same hard drive on a ATA-133 EIDE will be much faster than either.

Typ WD ATA-133 7200 RPM hard drive for sustained transfer:

USB2 case: 10-18 MB/s
IEEE-1394 case: 20-35MB/s
EIDE/SATA: 35-55 MB/s (a Raptor may get 50-85MB/s)

Also USB2 has higher CPU activity. But none of this matters for a DVD Writer. It will go equally fast for any of the above.

[waheed]

The speeds for USB2 at 480Mb/s ad Firewire at 400Mb/s are only theoretical BURST SPEEDS. They are not actual speeds and neither USB and Firewire will EVER attain those speeds.

In practise, IMO, firewire does perform slighly faster than USB2.

[wayne421]

The USB2.0 vs. Firewire debate has been around forever.

That being said, they're both fast enough for external CD/DVD writers. I've used both and have had no speed-related problems.

However, be wary of some USB2.0 chipsets for other reasons. I've had issue with some VIA USB chipsets where it will drop the connection for a split second, which is enough to make your disc into a coaster. I've had better reliability with Firewire, but that's just my personal experience.

W

[Steve Stepoway]

... I've had issue with some VIA USB chipsets where it will drop the connection for a split second, which is enough to make your disc into a coaster. I've had better reliability with Firewire, but that's just my personal experience.

W

I've had timing issues with VIA chipsets of all kinds, so it's no surprise that their USB chips have "issues". Last time I bought a Firewire card I paid twice as much to get non-VIA chip.

Steve

[LloydAZ]

You are both right, and you are both wrong. In theory USB2 has a (slightly) higher max bitrate than Firewire/400. If you are using it in the lab, testing max data transfer rates, USB2 will be faster.

But I don't know many people who do that. Most of us transfer real files between real devices. All the tests that I've seen indicate that, in real life, firewire is faster.

"The difference between theory and real life is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and real life, while in real life, there is." -- variously attributed to man people

Steve

Whatever happened with Firewire/800? I've read articles about boosting Firewire speed up to 800mbps, but I've yet to see anything about it since.

I like firewire, but it can be a little tricky if you don't have a good card. For example a friend of mine bought a Firewire iPod a few years ago. It wouldn't talk with the firewire card that he had in his PC. Apple told him that he had to have a particular brand of firewire card for it to work. He returned the iPod instead.

Another friend of mine has a DVD burner that is both USB-2 and Firewire. He uses the USB-2 with his mother's laptop without any problems, but only had firewire on his main system. The firewire gave him some trouble. I gave him an extra Adaptec Firewire card I had sitting around the house. He installed it and his problems went away.

[garryheather]

The other thing, of course, is cross platform compatibility. Even Apple seem to be dropping Firewire these days in favour of USB. If you're ever planning on taking a drive on the road like I do, I make sure I've got a USB cable on me as most computers have a USB port compared to relatively few with Firewire. I don't know why, but some burning software seems to have trouble detecting drives on Firewire but don't have a problem with USB.

Personally, whenever I buy an external enclosure I pay the extra £2 or so for a unit that has both - although out of choice I stick with USB. I can't say I've noticed any difference in performance between the two EXCEPT for the buffer levels fluctating with Firewire (it's solid on USB), but that's probably more down to the bridge in my enclosure.

[ccbadd]

You all should look at how both bus's work. Firewire chipsets use very little CPU overhead do to much less Interupt usage whereas USB is VERY Interupt driven. the more interupts that accur can cause problem with system performance and hence the real work performance of firwire for large transfers is better. All dvd writers require a lot off data to be streamed to the drive without interuption, ie, no Interupt. Other devices on a PC can cause Interupts and interfere with USB operation more then firewire. Technically speaking, firewire is a much more efficient bus and real world experience shows this. If you don't believe me, go over to cdfreaks forum and look at the number of dvd burners that can burn over 14X with both bus's and you will see that NO burner that can not go faster than UDMA-2 can burn faster then ~14X with USB but can do it fine via firewire. Newer drives that support UDMA-4 work fine with USB and fire wire. So why can a UDMA-2 drive burn 16X via firewire but stumbles over USB.

[garryheather]

... which is why I said things like "on a properly configured" and advised against the use of hubs and so on. I'm pretty sure I used words like "Theoretical", too.

So if you've got an ancient PC with a third party Firewire card added onto the ISA bus (I'm joking guys, some of you lot have NO sense of humour) and insist on playing Doom 3, watching the TV via a capture card and processing SETI units at the same time as you try and burn DVD's at 16x, then Firewire is the way to go. Everyone happy ?

Seriously, the other thing to consider here is very few drives burn at their maximum rated speed for the whole burn anyway. If you're really worried about saving a few seconds on each burn you either need to use a duplicating plant and let them worry about units going out the door, or find something better to do with your life than sit in front of your computer with a stop watch. I advise girlfriends, beer and sleeping.

[vitualis]

@ all: calm down.

However, other things being equal, USB2 is NOT faster than Firewire. Yes, it has faster burst transfer speed, however, for sustained transfers (i.e., reading a large amount of data from an external HDD), Firewire tends to be quite a bit faster.

YOU are wrong. Firewire has a theoretical transfer rate of a stonking 1600Mb/s but currently only reaches 400Mb/s. USB-2 will reach 480Mb/s. If you don't hang multiple devices off of a single port, the transfer rate of a properly configured USB-2 device IS faster than firewire.

This is both right but also substantially wrong. Regardless of how well configured your USB2 device is, for sustained transfers, it is not faster than Firewire. As per others. Check real world tests (and this is NOT hanging devices off hubs). For sustained HDD transfers, Firewire is substantially faster (and more efficient with less CPU overhead) than USB2.

Where things are "not equal" are in the quality of chipsets in enclosures and hubs. You are probably (though not necessarily) going to have more problems with a Firewire enclosure/chipset/compatibility issue (especially with cheap devices) than with USB2.

Regards.

[bevills1]

Go to http://www.callforhelptv.com/callforhelp/extremetips/0242A.shtml to see some actual lab test results that shows firewire is faster than USB 2.0 due to USB slave type operation while firewire operates peer to peer using far less system resources as others have said here.

[waheed]

Forget USB2 and Firewire. Just get a SATA PCI Card with a SATA external enclosure. SATA is the future with 1.5Gb/s speeds, will waste both USB2 and Firewire.

[RLT69]

Forget USB2 and Firewire. Just get a SATA PCI Card with a SATA external enclosure. SATA is the future with 1.5Gb/s speeds, will waste both USB2 and Firewire.

Hate to burts your bubble but Firewire is faster:

http://www.1394ta.org/Press/2006Press/february/2.8.a.htm

"The storage market is keenly awaiting higher data rates offered by 1600 Megabits/second and 3200Mbps 1394b devices, which are planned for this year and for 2007."

3.2 Gb/s now that's fast! Faster than SATA II, which is 3.0 Gb/s.

If you want speed, you go with Firewire. USB is good for keyboards and printers and that's about it.

Oh and gotta love that 2 meter limit on the cabling for USB....
Firewire also works over CAT 5.....

[edDV]

Forget USB2 and Firewire. Just get a SATA PCI Card with a SATA external enclosure. SATA is the future with 1.5Gb/s speeds, will waste both USB2 and Firewire.

Make that 480-720 Mb/s (60-90 MB/s) with any realworld hard drive over SATA.
http://storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_3.html

The current limit is the mechanical head read and disk controller performance, not the PATA vs SATA interface. Both are faster than USB2 and IEEE-1394a.

But what does any of this have to do with video projects? Most of what we do only requires 16-36Mb/s (2-5 MB/s). True uncompressed capture needs special handling but on the fly huffyuv lossless compression can make most any current generation PATA/SATA HDD work if the CPU can handle the compression load.

External USB2 and IEEE-1394 drives can be used for most tasks other than uncompressed capture. They are on thinest ice during capture and DV in/out transfer. Capture-transfer drops often happen becuase of CPU or PCI bus contention rather than raw interface speeds.

[OmegaSupreme]

A DVD writer doesn't need much speed. Even at 16x it only needs sustained 22Mb/s but writers work in bursts so figure 100Mb/s (12.5MB/s) tops. This is well within either USB2 or IEEE-1394.

I prefer USB2 for my writer because IEEE-1394 under DirectShow seems to still have contention issues unless you unplug everything else.

Maybe someone can suggest a way to manage multiple IEEE-1394 devices under DirectShow. By that I mean a mix of drives, camcorders, MPeg2_TS devices and networking over IEEE-1394 each on their own port.

16x requires 22MB/s or about 176Mb/s sustained.

[kenmo]

oops wronmg thread...

[edDV]

A DVD writer doesn't need much speed. Even at 16x it only needs sustained 22Mb/s but writers work in bursts so figure 100Mb/s (12.5MB/s) tops. This is well within either USB2 or IEEE-1394.

I prefer USB2 for my writer because IEEE-1394 under DirectShow seems to still have contention issues unless you unplug everything else.

Maybe someone can suggest a way to manage multiple IEEE-1394 devices under DirectShow. By that I mean a mix of drives, camcorders, MPeg2_TS devices and networking over IEEE-1394 each on their own port.

16x requires 22MB/s or about 176Mb/s sustained.

Right, sorry. So going from hard drive performance at 10-20 MB/s, a USB2 External writer may not be able to handle 16x without stopping for buffer refresh.

[INFRATOM]

Refer to my comment on your other thread,

[ozymango]

Is there a preference of one over the other when it comes to external DVD burners...

Obviously you've noted several preferences in the above responses!

Well, personally, theoretical maximum speed is all find and dandy but unless you're burning discs at the speed of light, I think either one will do you just fine. My external box (I've used it as both an external DVD burner and external hard drive, depending on my needs) has both USB2 and Firewire connections and I've got both inputs on my computer, I've tried setting it up either way and -- drum roll please -- it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

I'll go with edDV on this: either one should have more than enough speed to do whatever you need. I s'pose if we get to 52X burners it'll be more of an issue, but realistically, doubling speed of a drive (DVD burner) starts falling off rather quickly once you're past the 8X speed. That is, if 1X takes 2 hours, then 4X takes 15 minutes (huge jump) and 8X takes 7.5 minutes (not that big a jump). Go to 16X, and you've save another whopping 3 minutes or so. Whoopee.

[ozymango]

Is there a preference of one over the other when it comes to external DVD burners...

Obviously you've noted several preferences in the above responses!

Well, personally, theoretical maximum speed is all find and dandy but unless you're burning discs at the speed of light, I think either one will do you just fine. My external box (I've used it as both an external DVD burner and external hard drive, depending on my needs) has both USB2 and Firewire connections and I've got both inputs on my computer, I've tried setting it up either way and -- drum roll please -- it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

I'll go with edDV on this: either one should have more than enough speed to do whatever you need. I s'pose if we get to 52X burners it'll be more of an issue, but realistically, doubling speed of a drive (DVD burner) starts falling off rather quickly once you're past the 8X speed. That is, if 1X takes 2 hours, then 4X takes 15 minutes (huge jump) and 8X takes 7.5 minutes (not that big a jump). Go to 16X, and you've save another whopping 3 minutes or so. Whoopee.

EDIT: I had to redo my math in there because I was off one X the first time.

[whitejremiah]

either way should be sufficiant, though i dont use either myself, i just play it safe and use internal drives..learned my lesson some time back with an external hdd when the power was suddenly killed to it and it was completely fried.....that being said, i've HEARD some people say that firewire is a bit less CPU intensive than usb, but usb2 transfers a little faster in actual useage...i dont think either way will make a huge differance though, so my thoughts is go with whatever's either cheaper or more availalble (i.e. if you have a firewire port already built in, use that and dont buy a usb card...or if you have usb built in, go with that and dont buy a firewire card...if both are available, just go with whichever one happens to be cheaper to set up.....)

[edDV]

Let's summarize what we know so far from above. This is my take.

1. USB2 is always more CPU intensive than IEEE-1394.

2. Using hard drive performance as a reference, IEEE-1394 transfers between 1-2x faster than USB2 in the real world.

USB2: 10-18MB/s HDD sustained transfer performance
IEEE-1394: 12-38MB/s HDD sustained transfer performance
PATA/SATA: 38-55MB/s (55-88MB/s SATA w/WD Raptor)

3. DVD Writers can be assumed to perform in a similar way to HDD.

4. USB2 is more widely supported and has fewer system issues so is more likely to work at the above rates on a random computer. IEEE-1394 needs to be tested and may require disconnection of other IEEE-1394 devices.

Are the above assumptions agreed? What is left out?