USB 3.0 vs FireWire 3200

Despite the extra ground made up by USB 3.0, FireWire still maintains an edge in technical categories like the power management, the compatibility with previous versions, and quite possibly even the actual transfer rate.

[Pandamobile]

4.8 Gbps. That's what, 600 MB/s? Dayum.

[SupaPlaya]

which is still very fast.

Copy a 25GB BD image in about 10 seconds. CRAZY.

[DJ]

Simply because of the fact that it's so widespread and understandable. USB 3.0 is faster than 2.0. There. Done deal.

I prefer FireWire, but it's just not as widely used. See any FireWire Thumb Drives on store shelves? Yeah, thought not.

[Tony999Montana]

Agreed, It would take a lot of work to make firewire the standard in most homes.

[Bonsai1214]

thats because firewire is an apple made standard. its used mostly for media purposes.

[PostApocalyptic]

@DJ,

I agree with almost all your points. Except the one about USB killing off Firewire. I think that using Flash thumb drives as an example is a strawman argument. External Firewire drives are used extensively in the consumer and professional market. And since hardware and modern operating systems have become more universal in todays heterogeneous world. The inclusion of a firewire/USB port(s) is common even after hearing about all the "USB 2.0 will kill Firewire 400" stories in the past. Think of it as like having different type of PCI cards that have DVI/VGA or HDMI. I would hate to just have one standard (USB) for my video editing tasks.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/sea...

[elexdc]

It is the standard if you need to use most camcorders!

[Kakkoii]

How the hell does it win on compatibility with previous versions? USB has maintained compatibility also.

[tmt345]

Your able to INSTANTLY get the new Firewire 3200 speed if you already have a Firewire 800 port. All you need is a device that supports it and your good to go, you don't have to upgrade your computer like you do with USB 3.0.

I think thats what they meant by that.

While USB will always remain champ in popularity, Firewire will always have more usability to it IMO because the whole architecture of it is much more advanced.

[napplegate]

while i agree that usb will always be the gold standard as far as peripheral devices it's slightly irritating that my current usb2.0 on a brand new setup will be outdated in a short time frame. although firewire as a whole sees very little use for peripheral mediums i for one will take full advantage of the new firewire 3200 anyway i can.

[Kakkoii]

@tmt353: That's impossible though.. Your still restricted to the physical limitations of the 800 port. You can only benefit from an upgraded port combined with the new cable, or else you don't have the physical changes that are needed to increase throughput. It makes no sense.

[beardpapa]

if that's true that's pretty kickash. I remembered reading wiki on the upcoming FireWire and USB specs, and after gathering information about data transfer speeds, it seems that FireWire is still the industry standard to go for when it comes to professional media editing. Something about how FireWire performance is more representative of the specs on paper, while USB's actual performance lies somewhere 40% of what's written. USB is more widespread though, so I think we'll see it around still. Only problem I see is if USB 3.0 will take off, since 2.0 is so common and everyone seems to know what a USB plug looks like. The 3.0 plug looks very foreign to me.

[Kakkoii]

@beardpanda: Huh? Are you sure you've seen the USB 3.0 plug? It looks the same on the outside, and is only a bit different on the inside.

USB 3.0 cables can be plugged into USB 2.0 and USB 1.0 plugs, and work. Hence being backwards compatible. There's nothing foreign about it, it looks the same, there's just more connection spots inside the plug and cable for increase throughput.

http://www.engadget.com/200...

[ATY]

USB is garbage.

The Intel lies about speed are disgusting.

Transfer rates to my Firewire connected drive are close to the claimed public speeds.

For my USB connected drive it is about half what Intel claims in real world usage and twice as slow to copy data compared to my Firewire drive.

[jack who]

USB 3.0 is capable of transferring files at an impressive 4.8Gbps

YOU LIE!!!!! usb 3.0 is way faster than that. USB 3.0s theoretical speed is over 5Gbps,

[TABSF]

The chips on SSD cant achieve 600MB/s nor can HDD and deffo not usb pens, but it will be more useful in years to come.

Sata gen 3 claims 6Gbps but that is 768MB/s clearly no drive is capable of this atm, not even raid.

USB 3.0 claims 4.8Gbps which is 614.4MB/s which will not happen, i bet it will max about 200 and 400 burst.

My drive does just over 100MB/s transfer.

[Kakkoii]

800MB/s Read Speed, 750MB/s Write. OCZ Z-Drive.
http://www.fudzilla.com/con...

And there's supposedly some 1GB/s and up ones coming later this year, if not next year. That's why they are moving towards using the PCI-E slots. A PCI-E x8 2.0 slot can support 4GB/s, X16 8GB/s. And when PCI-E 3.0 comes out in 2010, that limit is getting doubled.

[TABSF]

I was referring the Sata, USB and Firewire.

That is one extreme Drive.

But i don't believe the controllers are capible of this, have to see it with my own eyes.

Same with PCI Express Gen 3, they are releasing that for the next gen of GPUs 2010/11 and so on but they have not yet maxed out Gen 2

[Why Dat]

sigh... I'm still on USB 2.0. I just got my new computer a few months ago too.