Why Firewire and not USB 2.0?

[Ford Prefect]

Hello everybody,
I plan to buy a external HDD. I KNOW that Firewire with Oxford Chip set is strictly recommended, but I wonder why?
Firewire 400 has a data transfer rate of 50 MB/s. USB 2.0 has up to 480 MBit/s i.e. 60 MB/s. So USB 2.0 is faster.
So, what's the reason for recommending Firewire?

[JMS40]

Firewire has better sustained rates than USB 2.0.
Here's a good link provided by spkguitar.
http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks for the link.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

[3over3]

Crikey, if Ford's buying a hard-drive then that must mean we're all safe for a bit yet - hooray! Or that Firewire's compatible with alien tech. Or something. Douglas Adams loved his music technology, y'know.

[Ford Prefect]

It is not over yet...

Look out for newst thread: Why Seagate Barracuda and not e.g. Samsung Spinpoint P120?

[f18mech]

Firewire 800 is twice as fast as USB 2.0! 800 kb/s instead of 480!

[Ford Prefect]

I know, but I am using a laptop with only Firewire 400 ports.

[f18mech]

Well I use USB 2.0 and I get zero latency, or at least so miniscule it doesn't effect recording, I think firewire is best suited when reading session files from an external hard drive, for recording interface usb works dandy for me...

John