[plug] comparing external hard disk - usb2 vs firewire with linux

[shayne]

There apples and oranges really. While firewire was designed at the
outset for mondo fast data transfer for video etc, USB was designed to
phase out RS232 (Although it is much closser to RS485 (or whatever it is
.. Thebalanced ++-- with nondefined daisychaining)) as a consumer
friendly simple data plugging protocol with discovery vibes..... Ie USB
for your mousie and Firewire for the Camera. And I'd seriously have to
say Firewire for HD. 2mbit usually ends up looking like 500kbit and not
much better than a frigging parallell port (Think old zip drives).

I will commend the USB dudes for not making the mistakes of the
RS232/422/485 stuff and actually freaking defining more than logic
levels. Having worked as a tech that spent most of my time in the black
art of reverse engineering mystery-black-box-RS232 dingles. I'd like to
go back in time and strangle some engineers. (Ie What pins do RX+ and
RX- by standard in RS422? Depends on what mood your in... Ouch... And
don't even start on handshaking. 3 pins matter only baby! RX TX GND.) 

That said I'd hate to see RS232 fazed out. one can build a RS232
adaptoid for toaster control with , like , 90 bucks worth of Pic & bits
drunk even. USB... Spooky stuff (AXIS's Etrax stuff makes life a little
easier tho..... linux!)

On Thu, 2002-10-10 at 15:14, tsuki_yomi at moon.curtin.edu.au wrote:
> 
> The one downside of USB2 is that if you have a USB2 and a USB1.1 device on 
> the one chain everything will be limited to the speed of USB1.1.  This 
> isn't the case for Firewire.
> 
> Also to note is the bandwidth.  USB2 does 480Mbs while Firewire does 
> 400Mbs.  Supposedly however Firewire2 will be up to 800Mbs across similar 
> cabling as Firewire1.
> 
> Personally I'd recommend Firewire, but then again I'm an Apple tech ;)
> 
> On 10 Oct 2002, Daniel wrote:
> > Hello Plug,
> > it seems that firewire has been supported for some time and that usb2
> > will be supported in the newer kernels.  
> > 
> > I wonder if there are any great differences between the way they operate
> > and their capabilities.(eg hot swappable / actual throughput /
> > reliability etc.)  While usb2 should (we hope) be backward compatable
> > with usb1.1 ports found on many computers, firewire would require an add
> > on card, but I was told it was designed specifically with hard disk
> > operation in mind and you could even daisy chain them without affecting
> > the throughput ...[once booted])
> > 
> > Your thoughts would be appreciated.
> > Thanks,
> > Daniel.
> 
> -- 
> James Budworth
> tsuki_yomi at moon.curtin.edu.au
>