Posted on 12/07/2007 11:38:39 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Hasta La Vista, FireWireLike we didn't see this coming, but a new report is confirming what we feared. FireWire is slowly but surely turning into a niche port. Even its strong hold in the camcorder sector is weakening, falling from an 87% in 2005 to 77% in 2006.
by Ben Longo
Gizmodo
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
A lack of firewire was a big reason for me not to upgrade my iPod. It is so much faster than USB. -- Jeff_McAwesome (reader comment)
I just want to know if Time Warner has a national customer support number instead of a local one?
USB 3.0 Will be 10X Faster, Could Doom FireWire [UPDATED]
by John Martellaro, 2:00 PM EDT, September 24th, 2007
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/09/24.9.shtml
Intel, HP, MS form USB 3.0 group, tout 10x speeds
Wednesday, September 19th
http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/09/19/usb.30.group.at.intel.idf/
Report: FireWire Headed for Slow Decline
FireWire faces major challenges from other interfaces and a stagnating marketshare.
Peter Cohen, Macworld
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 6:00 AM PDT
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,133510-pg,1/article.html
FireWire Dead?
December 19, 2005 by Martin MC Brown
http://theappleblog.com/2005/12/19/firewire-dead/
[snip] More recently, large capacity external hard drives and RAID units have been moving to the SATA interface which is faster than both USB and FireWire 800. SATA/150 runs at 150MBps (approx. 1.2Gbps, compared to the 800 Mbps of FireWire 800, or 480Mbps of USB 2.0). SATA/300 doubles the rate to 2.4Gbps. In nearly all cases the choice in external storage now goes USB 2.0 at the low end, USB/Firewire combo in the mid and SATA at the top. [end]
Discontinued Support for IP over 1394
Updated: December 8, 2004
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/bus/1394/IP_1394.mspx
Wireless USB chip debuts
EE Times | 03/01/2007 | R. Colin Johnson
Posted on 03/02/2007 2:25:38 PM EST by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1794134/posts
I suppose it depends where you live. /rimshot
Thats nice. and now for something completely different...
Time Warner is a cult. They have no national customer service number??? the local one is closed nights and weekends!
They used to have a national support number, but not any more.
This is bad, as the company I work for has some 600 remote stores, and about 50 of them use Time Warner Business Class, so when those stores go down, we have to scramble to find the right phone number to call. And finding a useful number on the web site is next to impossible.
Mark
pingworthy?
Firewire still has some advantages, like a longer cable and not requiring a host, but this is what I’d use for an external hard drive.
I’ve never owned a firewire device. My laptop supposedly supports it, but I’ve never had a chance to put it to the test. USB works just fine for my purposes most of the time.
The history of USB is reflected in the lack of foresight from the beginning. See if this strikes you as myopic:
1. "Okay, guys, we are inventing USB. It's gonna be for keyboards and mice and such. But they don't take advantage of the full speed of the hardware. So let's have a low-speed version (1Mbps) and a full-speed version (12Mbps)."
So USB is LOW-speed and FULL-speed.2. "Okay, guys, FireWire is kicking our ass on speed with their 400Mbps speed. We need something faster than full-speed. How about high-speed? And can we make it a bigger number than FireWire? How about 480Mbps? And while we're at it, Microsoft, please de-support FireWire."
Now USB is LOW-speed, FULL-speed, and HIGH-speed.3. "Okay, guys, FireWire 800 is kicking our ass on speed again. Our 480 didn't even do as well as FireWire's 400. What are we gonna do? We already used up FULL and HIGH. How about SUPER?"
Now USB is LOW-speed, FULL-speed, HIGH-speed, and SUPER-speed.And according to the USB folks themselves, there won't even be a specification for 3.0 super-speed written until the middle of 2008. Don't believe a word about real working hardware showing up in 2008. It's lies.
Don't take my word for it, read this official PDF (Nov 28, 2007):
USB 3.0 Promoter group press release
If they get USB3.0 super-speed hardware development done as rapidly as they did the USB2.0 high-speed hardware development, you won't see products with super-speed until late 2009 at the earliest. My money is on 2010.
(Full disclosure: I work for a company whose entire business is based on USB since 1997, and we have been deeply involved in the development and deployment of both USB1.x and USB2.0 hardware and software. Believe me, these things take time, and marketing people always lie.)
The sustainable rate of USB is far below Firewire’s sustainable rate. Ask anyone who deals with huge files (e.g. movie production) And touted burst speed of 480Mb/s means nothing in the real world.
It remains to be seen what the 10x increase in burst rate will mean when copying 50gb from a local drive to external drive via USB3.
Remember also that the 7200RPM disks in most consumer gear can't sustain more than about 35-50MB/sec (depending on where the head is on the platter). High-end SATA can get up around 65MB/sec, and of course 10K and 15K SCSIs can outdo that. But no single physical storage device needs more than 800Mbps.
Now, build a RAID0 with a good controller, and that can go up by 50-75%.
I think the real usefulness of the proposed USB3.0 "super-speed" will be when you've got a number of fast USB2.0 hi-speed devices in a concentrator (e.g. a hub). The connection from the hub back to the host needs to handle more traffic.
> It remains to be seen what the 10x increase in burst rate will mean when copying 50gb from a local drive to external drive via USB3.
My guess: approximately NOTHING.
It's the same deal as the SATA-I to SATA-II increase (1500Mbps to 3000Mbps). There's no drive in the world (even 15K SCSI) that can saturate even SATA-I. SATA-II is only useful when you've got multiple SATA drives concentrated down a single connection, and you are hitting all those drives concurrently.
High-end video production is a place (probably the only place) where these higher speeds will shine. Normal home and business users will not see any benefit.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.