FireWire S3200 vs USB 3.0

[Richard Dower]

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Another...-vs-USB-3.html

Currently in the market there are two main interfaces to connect an external device to a PC: USB and Firewire. Recently, the e-SATA interface has been introduced with excellent results but the "old" ones are not remaining still to watch and two new standards are emerging: FireWire S3200 and USB 3.

According to news published at Ars Technica, the IEEE 1394 Trade Association has announced a new FireWire specification (officially known as S3200) that the group claims is capable of delivering up to 3.2Gb per second of throughput. The new interface will use the same physical connectors, arbitration, and protocols as its predecessor. On the other side, Intel has stated that it expects USB 3.0 to be 10 times as fast as USB 2.0, which would give it a 4.8Gbps transfer rate.

Detailed information about USB3 are not yet available, but I still think that e-SATA is the real future.

[Helmore]

e-SATA the real future? That would be tough as it's more suited for external storage and it doesn't have any form of power supply to the device it connects with. Oh well, it's just the authors opinion...

[Warboy]

I wanna see benchmarks, RAWR

[generics_user]

firewire FTW

no need for hubs, just daisy-chain your stuff , only windows support needs to be better, on a mac setting up firewire networks is much easier

BTW: windows needs to include a function similar to macs: start in firewire mode.

this way i can access my notebooks hard drive + dvd drive as if they were external drives

[3NZ0]

Firewire, while being the superior interface is dwarfed by usb's support and overall cost.

Put it like this, all the computers at my college (around 150 of them) have 8 or more usb ports and no firewire ports. A sign of how things are and will remain.

Will be interesting to see how well the new usb performs, we all know the new firewire will be blazingly quick.

[red]

usb 3 is likely to use usb1 and usb2 port right?

FW1 support is near nonexistent, nvm FW2.

[Den Leiw]

yeah USB 3 uses the same ports as USB 2/1.1


FW has better transfer but it doesn't get much love... just look at newer mobos having 8+ USB ports

[MuffinFlavored]

yeah USB 3 uses the same ports as USB 2/1.1


FW has better transfer but it doesn't get much love... just look at newer mobos having 8+ USB ports

Imagine a mouse, keyboard, iPod, and cell phone all Firewire. Just doesn't sound right.

[Serra]

firewire FTW

no need for hubs, just daisy-chain your stuff , only windows support needs to be better, on a mac setting up firewire networks is much easier

FireWire FTL.

The reason Macs support it better is because Apple owns patent rights to the name (not the protocol though, I believe). FireWire was not and will not be the dominating force as they still charge you a dollar per master device and a quarter per slave, versus USB's free usage. Think about it, you're a big manufacturer making 100 million USB products a year. Change those over to FireWire (using a name people recognize) and you've either just lost 25-100 million that year, or became somewhat less competitive.

Edit: I suppose though, that's about par for the Mac course - charging more for lesser hardware (at least for computers... the iPod is arguable).