“The latest rivalry to erupt is between the IEEE 1394 and USB 2.0 high-speed serial bus specifications. In addition to 400Mbps-class bandwidths (400Mbps for 1394 and 480Mbps for USB 2.0), hot-plug connectivity, and auto-configuration capabilities, both can support either asynchronous or isochronous operation, theoretically making them suitable for both computer peripherals and digital A/V equipment. Not surprisingly, many users have no idea why they should choose one over the other.” Read the interesting benchmarking article at ExtremeTech and witness FireWire beating USB 2.0 on all tests.
IEEE 1394 vs USB 2.0
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I hate USB i wish it would go away forever, I will never use USB Its a little two hotplugable for me, considering it put my last computer on fire
Excellent article, not overly biased (by my standards) and provide a good overview of the current USB 2.0 status (not ready).
I will pick 1394. I like autonomus controlers. USB uses the system proc (suprise, intel made the thing)
besides, 1394 operates like scsi with its ability to connect 2 devices on the same bus and then let those devices communicate directly.
the bandwidth sharing is cool to 🙂
While not neccesarily as mature as IEE1394 I think that the backwards and forwards nature of USB2 is what really makes me think that it is the better pick. The idea behind USB was for it to be universal for most devices. I don’t like the idea of going back to a bunch of different ports for different devices.
http://www.barefeats.com/fire26.html
I think FireWire will probably be ‘king of the hill’ for awhile, and with Apple working on the next generation FireWire standard (as we speak) it can only get better. I still think USB is good for keyboard and mouse connections, it certainly works well with the Mac solutions 🙂
Yes, I know that IEEE1394/FireWire/iLink/SB1394/(put your own name here) is great and such.
But… USB 2.0 has a GREAT advantage: USB 1 compliance. What makes USB 1 really great is the number of different solutions made for it – from mouses to Ethernet adaptors to floppy drives to cellular chargers. All those things will work seamlessly with USB 2.
I like 1394. Honestly. But I don´t use digital cameras, don´t need an external big hard drive, so I don´t use it. I want my USB, please.
What gets me POed is everytime some standard comes out trying to unify something, somebody comes up with another standard to compete…
How come no one is trying to make a better floppy? Just pick a standard and stick with it. Diversity in standards is NOT a good thing (it good for the manufacturers not the consumers). Standards should replace one another, not compete.
my $0.02
What really makes 1394 shine is Peer-to-Peer networks. Ever try to connect two USB hosts together? You can’t. Ever try to hook two USB devices together (say a USB keyboard and an iPaq)? You can’t. This is the biggest downfall of USB. It is so PC centric that the devices are stupid and cannot operate on thier own terms. Great for mice and harddisks, terrible for connectivity and video and anything else you might want to do with a “real” network.
Also, someone commented about Apple doing “the next gen”, it is the IEEE that does the next gen. Apple does have people on the IEEE1394 board, but to say that Apple alone is pushing forward is hogwash. Fact is that the 800Mbit standard has been around for a while, I just don’t belive it has been ratified yet. Next step, 1.6Gbit/s!
Check this out:
IOGear GUF220
http://www.iogear.com/products/product.php?Item=GUF220
It seems to me like a lot of PC manufacturers are including both FireWire/i.LINK and USB 2.0 on their motherboards anyways (example, Sony).
I found using a digital camera with usb 1 satisfactory.
although, a camcorder might require higher speeds
i havent seen the problems the author describes with USB2 devices/drivers, so from my perspective it is not an immature technology (adaptec duo connect card under XP; and an adaptec cardbus interface under win2k)
the backwards compatibility is great and i have had no problems…if burning CDs at 24x to an external burner on a p166/80mb laptop running win2k is possible with it (i’ve done it several times), i would hardly call it processor intensive
there is room for both standards…buy one of the combo interface cards and use whichever suits your application best..personally i like the fact that USB is more of an “open” standard and the vendors dont have to pay royalties to anyone
boogie
46 pages long, so far.
1824 posts.
32317 views.
1 thread.
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=48…
Never read it myslef, too damn long for us mortals.
Prog.
800 Mbps firewire is also on the agenda, also totted as being backward compatible. IEEE1394 *is* the defacto standard on consumer camcorders, and a few companies are pushing Firewire harddisks. They both have a place on my PC.
Its really amazing how people get the latest 2.4GHz P4’s and use winmodems/usb2/ide devices. A more balanced system will save money on the processor and spend more for faster (less CPU intensive) peripherals – ie. SCSI, Firewire etc.
They actually have 1394 based LAN’s now, where you buy a card, stick it in, and you communicate via a 1394 connection between two or more PC’s.
Is there any good erason not to have both?
I like, the idea of teh two seperate buses. Have one optimized for my little doodads and one optimized for the badnwidth hogs. 2 different types of ports is a lot bettern then 2 serial, 1 AT keyboard (Or 1 serial and 2 PS2), parallel, gameport, proprietary ports, SCSI, etc.
The real question is with all of these devices becoming networkable like sound systems is which would be perfered, Ethernet or 1394
Well, I like them both
Of course, it would be simplier if there was just one. I’ve always thought firewire performed better, so I usually use 1394 instead of usb 2. But there is not a huge diffrence.
Just my 2.634 yen.
or my 0.0377280 Australia dollars…
Isn’t the next gen of 1394 going to be backwards, forwards whatever, compatable?
ATAPI-to-FireWire converter:
http://www.caloptic.com/fwint.html
“The DAT Optic Firewire Internal Converter is an internal a high-performance 1394 to IDE bridge adapter to convert IDE/ATAPI CD-RW, DVD, HDD, MO into Firewire devices. These peripherals can be quickly and reliably converted to plug-and-play Firewire versions. Both of ATA and ATAPI devices are supported. With the integrated Serial Bus Protocal (SBP-2), it can use generic device drivers available in the Microsoft Win98SE, WinME, Win2000, WinXP and MAC OS 8.6 or higher.”
Firewire (IEEE1394) requires a per port ‘royalty’ payment to the original IEEE1394 standards committee members (including Apple, Sony, Texas Instruments and others).
Notably Intel is NOT part of that group – three years ago Intel was getting a lot of complaints from it’s board customers (Intel makes boards for other folk) about having to pay that license/royalty fee (even though it was lowered at around the same time).
USB 2.0 is the result – Intel wanted a higher speed bus that they could control and not need to pay money to other people for.
Frankly USB2.0 is unlikely to make it as big as Firewire in some markets precisely because of this. After all I doubt we’ll see Sony replacing Firewire on their DV Camcorders with USB 2.0 – and the cost of having both would raise the price of the product.
So it might (or might not) be better than Firewire – but one thing USB 2.0 definately is – it’s a creation of industry politics.
Andrew 😎
What are you trying to tell me here..? That a Bus with a maximum throughput of 480 MBit is to choose over IDE…? And that would even be more appropriate to complement an 2,4 GHz P4..? Uhh…
Some opportunistic manufacturer will make an integrated interface that supports both IEEE1394 and US, suitable for integration into devices, so they can use either standard to communicate with a PC ( But not with each other obviously )… I think external Hard Drive caddies using both FireWire and USB2 are already available.
Hardware that supports both standards seems an elegant and logical way to let the competing standards battle it out,
For my tuppence-worth – I bought a USB-only PC in 2000 – the century City 5000 from not defunct AST Computing.. had intel 810, cel 500, 64Mb, modem, internal graphics and 4 USB ports in a sealed designer case ( ext monitor, USB keybdand mouse )
it only had one major problem – total I/O bandwidth was too low, and when using my HP8230 USB CDRW drive ( USB 1.1, 4x write, 24x read ) the mouse became highly erratic and typing input slowed down as the onboard USB hosts diverted all bandwidth to one port to keep the burner running.
Attempting to use Zip and CDRW, or scanner, at same time, caused ruined disks. With the bandwidth allowed by USB2 this PC would be an excellent machine, as it is its better suited to ocasional I/O intensive tasks, which is probably why ist was sold cheaply ( GB Pounds £500 in 3/00 ) and not bundled with scanners or printers. Roll on USB2 or 1394 – doesnt matter which, just give us the speed that modern consumer devices need.
Am I the only person who thinks scsi is, was and always will be a joke? I’ve seen it mentioned a few times by supporters, but really it never was that good. Too many conflicting standards, not nearly as compatable as it should be (although it does seem to finally be fixing that problem, ‘course its what a 12 year old standard?). Yea its faster then ide, but its no where near as good for your average user (or even your average “power” user). As for firewire or usb 2.0, if I had to choose I’d choose usb 2.0. Reason being I already have some usb stuff, and no firewire stuff. Firewire will never completely replace usb (too many usb devices already sold, and most of them wouldn’t need the speed boost), but usb will never completely unseat firewire (as long as sony is a major player in digital video, which could be a while). My big question though is, isn’t this overkill? Look at the 2 most popular usb items, mice and keyboards, both of which really don’t need more speed (hell keyboards don’t even need usb, I don’t know anyone who can type at 12,000 strokes per second or however many you could do with usb). And the firewire items, other than digital video cams, are all pretty niche markets. I personally don’t know anyone who has an external burner or hard drive, or a need for one. And yes the ease of install might make them good for people who aren’t ready to open up their cases and install something, but those people would most likely pay the extra 20 bucks or whatever and have them installed for them. I guess my whole point is long live printer port!
long live COM1 !
I do audio editing and have a huge need for externel hard drives. The sessions I work on usually are ~3gigs (per session) and for back up, the externel USB2 hard drive I have is perfect… Especially when I’m backing up 20 gigs of audio files and data. It also allows me to hook it up to my laptop when I’m doing live recordings or working on the music on another computer (say, at a friends house). Externel CDRWs are great if you have a laptop and a desktop machine and need a CDRW on both (aka me)…
It would be nice to see a mobo that doesn’t have any serial ports on it, no integrated sound, no integrated video… Just USB / FireWire ports… That’s just me ranting
480 Megabits per second (aka 60 MegaBytes per second) is considerably slower than the fastest IDE controller which operates at 133 MegaBytes per second* (or 1064 Megabits per second). And just wait until Serial ATA comes along.
Just remember – Firewire is for replacing external SCSI devices, and USB for external serial/parallel/AT/ps2/gameport connectors – it’s not the best option for adding storage, IMHO.
*Before you flame me, yes I know that the speed is UDMA burst mode and not sustainable. However most file accesses are done in burst mode – so opening say a word document would give you that kind of throughput.
Sorry, I should have clarified my previous post. Yes, some companies have released Firewire hard disks (check google) but their main purpose is hot pluggability. Great for moving data on the fly – backups, MP3 devices (iPod), camcorders, servers etc. So yes, an IDE hard disk is faster/preferable than a 480Mbps Firewire disk for desktop use. Just keep in mind that the fastest hot pluggable port is firewire, hence the Firewire hard disks. Firewire2 will go up to 800Mbps, which is in the ballpark of ATA66.
Geez.
When bandwidth is really important for your typical PC user is when they are opening large files, like movies or large MP3’s, not opening 1K Microsoft Word files. Burst speed is definately important, but we wouldn’t be beating ourselves up about transfer rates of 60MB/s or 100MB/s if we can only do it for 1ms.
USB 1.1 and x1394 (Firewire) complement (and, arguably, complete) each other. USB 2.x is more like a monkey wrench, in my opinion. Not that it’s bad. I’m sure it saves the manufacturers money, and the manufacturers might actually consider passing those savings on to the consumers. Ok, stop laughing. Yes, I know they will only really pass the savings on if USB 2.x really doesn’t catch on. I think it could be a good thing, though, but only for PCs. It would be nice to get little cheap boxes outfitted with only USB 1.1/2.x for $500 or less, and this will eventually happen.
But, USB2 means little to the consumer electronics industry. Yes, I read the little blurb about USB 2.1 and “USB-to-Go” but it it’s not here yet. In consumer electronics, x1394 is on almost all the major companies’ roadmaps and is not going anywhere because of HAVi (Home Audio Video Interoperability) organization. Apple is also NOT moving very quickly behind USB 2.x (despite them being VERY MUCH behind USB 1.1), not only because of its competition, but because it would hurt its image as the “media hub” by going against the HAVi initiative.
So, to conclude, even if USB 2.x rocks the PC world like USB 1.1 did, and manages to eat 1394 for breakfast, your new TVs and stereos, Playstation 2s and 3s, personal video recorders, DVD players, and what-all-else will MOST LIKELY have an x1394 port on them somewhere. And you know what? I won’t even mind that much.
–JM
Oh, and I use and love my Macintosh, so I have to say this:
WOOO!! Firewire r0x! Intel $uck$! USB is slow and sucks eggs!! x86 is lame and PowerPC 4ever!!! WOOOOOOO!!!
To the person who complained about the endless competition of new standards and the lack of new floppies… I agree with you. But, there IS a new format of floppy drive that is backwards compatible with 1.44MB/720K, plus it is faster, and stores realistic amounts of data (as opposed to the pathetic throwaway floppy standard we have now).
It’s called LS-120 (or LS-240). Made up by Imation and licensed by two to four other drive manufacturers. It’s great. 120MB (or 240MB in the newly updated model). “Laser servo” controlled (to keep the heads on track in tiny increments). Motor-driven eject (software ejection) or manual. It’s what floppy drives should have been from the very beginning. Sad thing is, no companies are shipping machines with these drives standard any more and no one is buying them to replace their useless 1.44 drives. Why? They’re more expensive ($70-$150) and barely marketed. No one asks for them except people like me that happen to think they’re cool. Everyone else simply asks for ZipDrives (which are still inferior junk). I use LS-120 by default in both of my machines.
It drives me nuts that these things haven’t become the standard floppy in all OEM machines. Compaq was using them as standard for a few machines, but that stopped rather quickly. No idea why. Look in computer junk catalogs. Tons of zip drives and external 1.44 drives for sale. Hardly a mention of LS-120.
LS-120 rocks. 1.44MB drives must die.
Why are they so many FireWire Sucks, i’ve never used it-posts.
You not used it, well it’s NOT MARKETED AT YOU.
Notice how Apple have ’em, it’s stuff for them arty types.
I’ve used it, and USB, they are BOTH GOOD IN THERE PLACE.
USB 2 will be intresting, but I really don’t fancy my mouse and/or networking (both USB) stopping when I grab stuff from a camcorder.
IDE vs SCSI again DIFFRENT MARKETS.
SCSI is aimed at the server market, as it can do funky stuff like clustering.
“One Size Fits All”, we have that in the OS world.
Check google for serial ATA, & lots of info here
http://www.serialata.org
Serial ATA will make SCSI/IDE/FW/USB drives irrelevant. This is the real future for disk drives, thin FW like cable, pt to pt, 1.5Gbps (3Gbs & 6Gbps later) LVDS signals, equivalent to ATA150 for now but with FW convenience. Supposed to be here in a few months to 03, demoed at Intel HW developer shows. Will require new mobo or PCI card, but driver issue should be 0 since it directly replaces ATA. Serial ATA cable can be long enough to leave the case to external drive, this is the way to go. Finally get rid of those wide cables that make PC’s a total mess on the inside when you have more than a few drives.
I worked with Intel engineers on a USB1.1 device, 12Mbps was impossible, we only got 5Mbps since data is only on the wire about 50% of time. No wonder FW beats USB2. IIRC USB must carry all header info to negotiate traffic at 1.5Mbps, no matter if the data is 1.5, 12 or even 480Mbps (an after thought). Still great for slow stuff, bad on high speed devices. As for backward compatibility, well you have to use top quality cables & keep slow stuff on other channels.
http://www.barefeats.com/fire26.html
This link sounds more realistic, the article above suggests that real world speed is 6x slower for FW & 12x slower for USB2 than the raw 400/480Mbps rates would suggest. Clearly those #s are meaningless if you don’t know how these technologies work, this time Intel/USB gets to benefit from a bigger no that delivers less.
The USB2, FW, IDE performance looks similar since the system tests were done on lots of small files where Windows performance is poor at best. I don’t know if the other OS’s are better/worse than Windows, that I would like to know.
As for the “SCSI is was always a joke” guy
Well how come most all the workstations, servers, mainframes, & all the earlier Macs used it. I use it on my PCs with few problem, it does work much better than IDE but it sure cost alot more esp the drives & faster PCI cards. Now I have seen Linux, BeOS not like a particular SCSI vendor, but Adaptec (more $) should always work.
And if you think USB2 is better than FireWire when mixing it with all your slow USB devices, well I have a bridge for sale.