Firewire or USB2?

[Rivers]

I'm about to buy an external hard drive for my Toshiba laptop for the purposes of capturing and editing dv files. What would you recommend, Firewire or USB2 connection?
The camcorder is connected via firewire and I have a spare connection on that card

EDIT: I apologise for posting in wrong section, I must be drunk or something......... reading one section whilst thinking about something else

[bugster]

EDIT: I apologise for posting in wrong section, I must be drunk or something......... reading one section whilst thinking about something else

Thats OK, moved you /moderator bugster

[bugster]

USB2 is more prolific. Practically every recent PC will have and if not will have USB1. SO if you want to be able to move the drive between different PC's this is the better choice. If this is not an issue for you, firewire is generally faster, but some people have problem capturing from a DV cam to a FW HD on the same card. YMMV.

[redwudz]

Get an external with both formats. Many external drives have both USB 2.0 and Firewire. All of mine do. That way I have more options and the drive will work with one or the other with just about any computer.

But Firewire has much fewer problems, IMO.

[vitualis]

As per bugster.

Capturing and exporting data on the same firewire interface on a laptop can be problematic, especially if you do it over a PCMCIA bus.

In this situation, using USB2 for the external HDD may be preferable.

An external case with both USB2 and Firewire would be the best of both worlds.

Regards.

[Denvers Dawgs]

which is faster. USB2.0 or firewire? I bought an external enclosure from newegg with both fire/usb2.0...

[redwudz]

I have always found the Firewire to be much faster. With my laptop and external Firewire VS USB 2.0, up to four times faster testing with SiSandra. Of course that would vary with the interface card.

[Skith]

FireWire is faster (to my understanding, there is less overhead and less CPU usage). This is true even though firewire is rated at 400Mbps vs. USB 2.0's 480Mbs.

Another thing to consider is the chipset used in the external case (bridge board). Two common chipsets are Prolific and Oxford,. Many people seem to favor the Oxford based chipsets for hard drives. Prolific seems to handle DVD writers better.

[Capmaster]

Ditto. I have noticed the difference in time taken for large file transfers between firewire and USB2 on the same machine/same PCI bus, etc. Firewire is noticeably faster

[stiltman]

which is faster. USB2.0 or firewire? I bought an external enclosure from newegg with both fire/usb2.0...

I ran some tests earlier when I first got my external enclosure
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=234767

[SLICK RICK]

which is faster. USB2.0 or firewire? I bought an external enclosure from newegg with both fire/usb2.0...

Like others here, I get faster transfers with firewire.

[Denvers Dawgs]

ok thanks all

[Rivers]

Thanks everyone for their input. I shall get a firewire/usb2 dual to cover all eventualities.
Thanks

[stiltman]

Thanks everyone for their input. I shall get a firewire/usb2 dual to cover all eventualities.
Thanks

Oxford chipset