Looking at buying an external drive, what is faster USB 2.0 or Firewire? Also there are ones that offer both options USB and Firewire but they cost more. Would you recommend that?
If you're going to travel and connect it to different computers, unless you know for sure they all have firewire, go USB. Firewire is faster, but I like USB, it's more convenient, because none of th comps in my house have firewire. And I travel a lot and none of the comps I use else have firewire. Or atleaset most of them dont.
______________________
-Still deciding on a signature
I would have to agree with Crafterz, that USB is more convenient.
Firewire 400 is nearly as fast as USB 2.0, but if speed is your concern,
take a look into Firewire 800, which blows the doors off of anything USB.
I'm not sure if PCs even have Firewire 800 capabilities yet, but I am
sure you can get a 3rd party card for your pc. One problem is that you
will need a fast PC to keep up with the transfer rates and avoid bottle
necks. Also, the combo USB/Firewire drives are the best of both worlds.
Even though USB is more widely used than FireWire, its speed capabilities can’t compare. USB’s data transfer rates range from 1.5 Mbits per second (low speed) to 480 Mbits/s (high speed). FireWire 800 has a speed of 800 Mbits per second, it is nearly twice as fast as high speed USB’s top data rate.
Even though USB is more widely used than FireWire, its speed capabilities can’t compare. USB’s data transfer rates range from 1.5 Mbits per second (low speed) to 480 Mbits/s (high speed). FireWire 800 has a speed of 800 Mbits per second, it is nearly twice as fast as high speed USB’s top data rate.
Correct, but for me I would still choose the USB rather than FireWire simply because USB is way more convenient to use if compared to FireWire as what CaptainJack and Crafterz said.
FireWire, uses a "Peer-to-Peer" architecture in which the peripherals are intelligent and can negotiate bus conflicts to determine which device can best control a data transfer
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 uses a "Master-Slave" architecture in which the computer handles all arbitration functions and dictates data flow to, from and between the attached peripherals (adding additional system overhead and resulting in slower data flow control)
FireWire vs. USB 2.0 Hard Drive Performance Comparison
Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:
Read Test:
* 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
* 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0
Write Test:
* 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0
* 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0
Linear Mode
