Whats faster USB 2.0 or Firewire?

[Super Warrior]

I'm thinking about upgrading my pc soon with a Pci card adding extra USB 2.0 ports.But i have no firewire ports and wonder if i should spend a little more on a card that has USB 2.0 and Firewire ports in one.Something like this:
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Section_Id=200433&pcou...duct_Id=125578

But why should i? Is'nt USB 2.0 supposed to be 20% faster than firewire? and the USB stuff is a lot more common and used connection.I wonder if i should even bother with firewire.

This is what i'm looking at: http://store.yahoo.com/directron/kw2580n.html

[semiclassical]

Of course both!

You will never achieve the 480Mb(USB2.0) or 400Mb(1394) speed. I have a USB 2.0 to IDE harddrive enclosure. The sustained speed is about 9MB/s or 70Mb/s. The sustained speed of 1394 may be faster according to some people in other forums. Don't believe the numbers. Actually the cheapest 10/100M network card can keep almost 95M in transfering a large file.

Sooner or later, yiu will come across both devices.

[negon]

Both is always better of course, but if you're gonna choose one, go with USB 2.0. The speed difference may not be that big, but USB seems to be more standardized in the Windows world.

[Allan55]

I agree that both gives the most flexibility and even come on new MoBos.

There is a new firewire standard coming that will compete with gigabyte ethernet.

Firewire can also be used for networking (under WinXP at least) but the hubs are more expensive.

IMHO, USB won't give good results for DV or other high-rate AVI streams. You'll need firewire for this.

Maybe the best answer is to pick your capture device and use whatever it requires.

[jnk76]

Firewire 1394 mbps which is if my math is correct....50MB/s
USB 2.0 is designed to go to 480mbps or 60MB/s.

There also is a 1394b for firewire which is 800mbps....100MB/s

Which one to use depends on what you are transferring and your machine capability.

[Richard_G]

It all depends what you want to use it for. As far as I know, all DV camcorders use Firewire to output video for capture purposes. Some also have USB but this is only for capturing stills or webcam type low resolution video. You'll need USB for printers and the like (I've not seen a Firewire printer yet), but you'll also need Firewire if you're doing video capture.

Go for both.

[dcsos]

BOTH on ONE GREAT CARD
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/proddetail.html?sess=no&language=English+US&p...re+Combo+Cards
altho you can spend less I go one of my duo connects for $79

[WildParadise]

Firewire 1394 mbps

??

Firewire is 400mbps = 50mb/s
USB2 us 480mbps = 60m/s

1394 is the ieee number, i don't remember the exact mbps but ieee 1284 isn't 1284 mbps, it's something around 0.5mbps!

[jnk76]

wildparadise,

my mistake.

should have read 1394 = 400mbps = 50MB/s.

[jeg_jason]

I do not know your current PC specifications, but I will offer some advice if you want to maximize the use of your PCI slot. There is a company called SIIG that makes combination USB 2.0 and firewire PCI cards. They take it a step further by having models that add serial ATA and/or parallel(ultra) ATA on the same card. Their most advanced model is the USB 2.0+FireWire+SATA+PATA Combo (SIIG part # SC-UNSP12), which combines a single channel Serial ATA controller, a single channel Ultra ATA, four Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (3 ext/1 int) ports and three 1394 FireWire (2 ext/1 int) ports in one card. If you plan on adding a hard drive Serial ATA has a maximum transfer rate of 150MB/s compared to only 60MB/s for USB 2.0 and 50MB/s for firewire. You can even get an external Serial ATA enclosure for about the same price as a firewire external enclosure, but you would need a way to get the small serial ATA cord through your case (Take cover off an empty case PCI slot, use a Highpoint B11 bracket, or cut a small hole.) The Highpoint Rocketmate 1000 external serial ATA enclosure is under $60 on Yahoo Shopping and accepts regular parallel IDE hard drives. The Ultra 133 ATA interface would allow you to easily add an internal hard drive that is bigger than 137GB or replace a smaller hard drive on your system as well for more precious store space. The Serial ATA interface supports drives bigger than 137GB as well. By using a serial ATA to ultra ATA adapter you could add another internal instead of external drive bigger than 137GB. The downside is that the card costs a little over $100 on Yahoo Shopping. But, if you take into account all the features it has and how valuable PCI slots are it is a good upgrade idea. My advice is to at least get a good combo card with both USB 2.0 and firewire that has each controlled by a separate chip.

http://www.siig.com/products/ide/index.html
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/rm1000.htm
http://www.highpoint-tech.com

Anyone who wants an external hard drive solution that smokes firewire and USB 2.0 with at least the same speed (maybe even faster) as an internal drive may want to try a serial ATA card preferably with external port(s) for use with one or more Rocketmate 1000 enclosures. The downside is loss of compatibility with other computers unless on a network or they support serial ATA as well.

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/1511.htm

[SHS]

You all have good point but the truth is you never arhive that kind speed over today PCI but soon as PCI-X come out that shouldn't be problem any more so they say.

[The village idiot]

I've not seen a Firewire printer yet

Epson has that as an option on some high end printers. Also on some newer scanners.

For the printer, any Epson that has a type "B" connection expansion slot. Mostly these are the medium and large format printers, but is backward compatible with things like the 1500, 1520, 800, etc. Also for this slot is ethernet, and a few others.

Mostly you do not need the speed of firewire for a printer, the machines or slow enough the serial/par are fast enough. The other connections only offer flexible connections, and in the case of Epson, may limit your overall print quality. You can not connect the Epson Fiery RIP boxes to your printer by anything other than par. This goes for the Epson Stylus RIP software, and maybe the newer software Fiery RIP. And without the RIP on the older printer you can not get their accu halftone setting which makes a large difference in print quality. All this is from what I have seen, maybe the third party RIP producers can do better.

OK, so the above is a little OT.....

I would buy a card with both USB2 and firewire. If I could get it with firewire 800, that would be even better.

[Super Warrior]

Those USB/firewire cards usually cost a bit too much.Anyone know of a cheap card out there with Usb&firewire?

I could buy a decent USB 2.0 card for around $15.Not sure if it's worth it to go buying a card that has firewire on it as well for about $60+ more.

[jnk76]

I am not sure if this is a good choice or not but my motherboard that I got has on board USB 2.0 and firewire and SATA. Might be something to consider if the cost is almost the same?

[jeg_jason]

Some relatively cheap combo options you may want to consider Star Warrior.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/dealsonic/sybeconecchf.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/store4pc/5porusb20fir.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/store4pc/usb20fir138p.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/megacode99/pci4porusb20.html


SHS is right about current PCI limitations and not getting maximum theoretical transfer speeds. But, even the fastest 7200rpm ATA-133 hard drives have data burst transfer rates of about 100MB/s or less and sustained maximum data transfer rates of less than 60MB/s tops. If USB 2.0 and firewire operated at their maximum rate they would handle these rates pretty well, but they do not in the real world.

[Super Warrior]

Some relatively cheap combo options you may want to consider Star Warrior.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/dealsonic/sybeconecchf.html

Cool i like that one.It does'ent cost too much,has internal ports and looks okay.