Firewire Vs. USB 2.0-who's gonna win?

[iplaymusicsoftly]

OK, I was talking to a computer guy about this...Firewire and USB 2.0 are essentially the same speed and functionality, as I understand it, and he agreed. HE thought that USB2.0 would eventually win out and Firewire would die off... Digi obvoiusly has faith in FW from the 002, of course, pT LE was origionally only supported on Win98SE too [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] . So, opinions on the future: Firewire, USB2.0, something else, or non-issue?

[vonbleak101]

Well considerig there are still PS/2 and Serial ports on some recent motherboards i dont think USB 2.0 or Firewire will be going anywhere soon. What you may see and this would be cool, if a motherboard only had these ports, say 4 of each, that would be sweet. USB keyboard, mouse and midi keyboard - firewire audio interface and harddrive, and a few ports spare. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[dans]

There is one very big difference between the two interfaces. FireWire is a peer-to-peer interface which allows communication from one device to another without a computer. It also allows multiple computers to share a single firewire device, such as a firewire RAID system. USB can not do that.

Also, Firewire allows for Isochronous Data Transfer which provides guaranteed bandwidth by transferring a uniform amount of data every second. Another source I found on this says, "Isochronous service means it guarantees latency; the length of time between a requested action and when the resulting action occurs -- a critical feature in supporting real time video..."

I'm no expert on the isochronous part of it, but I'm pretty sure USB can't do that either. Both of these technologies will be around for a while as they both have their advantages and disadvantages and are supported heavily by so many big players.

[dans]

Firewire is already updated on the new PowerMacs. They have both regular Firewire and Firewire 800 (twice the speed of the old ports).

[JamesV]

Who really cares, who's gonna win? Suspect both will continue....in some revision or another. [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Taylor1725]

Some computer guy told me there will be another version of firewire soon ('firewire 2.0') and then USB will up itself to 3.0 and so on so forth. I don't know how true that is, but seems possible

[Swaphappy]

Yes I have heard that too (Firewire 2).
I have also heard that the IDE bus will be going
serial so that it will resemble Firewire.
That means the flat IDE cables will be replaced by round cables saving space and no need for jumpering. The two drive per cable limit will be gone also.

[Jerel Johnson]

I am newbie to recording. Don't have my 001 yet. A guitar buddy of mine uses an old 16 bit/44.1 Roland VS-840. Just needed to qualify myself first. I started working with the 1394 IEEE standard protcol in the mid '80's when I was in the Navy (read my profile). Our aircraft upgraded from 16 line parallel bus to 1394 IEEE twisted pair (for RFI) priority bus interupt system. Our communications systems were on the bus also and improved performance greatly. Can't tell ya bit depth, speed or frequencies carried on the bus or I would have to kill ya. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] There were many upgrades by the time I retired in '95. The military always gets the new techno stuff first!. I was proud to serve! With som R&D I would think Firewire could be around for a while. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

Make it groove!!

Jerel