[Macworld]

Post your comments for FireWire vs USB: Which is faster? here

[applecrate]

Duh. I didn't need speed tests to know that FW800 is faster. It's also quicker and more reliable to mount FW than USB.

[dm33]

Inaccurate.

In my tests on an original white 13" Macbook, speed with USB drops precipitously as you connect more USB devices. With one and only one USB device, you may reach close to 40MB/sec, but add a few other USB devices, even if they aren't being accessed and speed typically drops to 15MB/sec.
Firewire speeds do not drop when chaining more devices.

So in my read world tests, Firewire 400= 40MB/sec, USB 15MB/sec.

Well worth the extra cost.

[ChrisLJ]

So what the heck ever happened to Firewire 3200? I thought it was supposed to be available by now.

[trip1ex]

Would have been interesting to see cpu usage again for USB vs FW.

FW800 is faster of course, but not many realize it's only 50% faster than FW400 rather than 100% like one might expect.

And for TM backups not sure the average user would notice the difference between of any of these interfaces.

[flybynight]

I was also wondering about FW3200. Haven't heard anything about it in over a year now. It's a shame. Hopefully USB 3 will over better reliability in addition to the speed boost.

[NW_Mike]

I would like to see the same test done on the Windows platform. The differences are dramatic. USB on Windows smokes our Macs systems and vice-a-versa. We are mostly a Mac shop and from my experience USB on Windows is like Firewire on Macs. Both seem to be tuned for their respective platforms. I wish our Macs were as fast at accessing data on external enclosures/flash drives as our (few) Windows systems.

I have no hard numbers (and am a totally 100% Mac guy) but Apples USB implementation is not great, imo.

[hillstones]

The iPods with FireWire were significantly faster at transferring data than the iPods with USB 2. It is a shame they lost FireWire support.

You won't see FireWire 3200 since FireWire is slowly disappearing.

[wayover]

What is the difference between copying and duplicating a file?

[Maxer]

The important thing is sustained speed; not burst speed or interface speed. Sustained.

Even most important than speed: Firewire Target Disk Mode for repairs, not available with USB.

Apple will implement Light Peak, not USB 3, which is dead before arrival.

NDA.

[robertRoss]

NW_Mike, on 23 December 2009 - 11:33 AM, said:

I would like to see the same test done on the Windows platform. The differences are dramatic. USB on Windows smokes our Macs systems and vice-a-versa. We are mostly a Mac shop and from my experience USB on Windows is like Firewire on Macs. Both seem to be tuned for their respective platforms. I wish our Macs were as fast at accessing data on external enclosures/flash drives as our (few) Windows systems.

I have no hard numbers (and am a totally 100% Mac guy) but Apples USB implementation is not great, imo.

It's interesting that eSATA, which I've been using for years for all external drives, is not standard on all Macs as it is very widespread on run of the mill PCs. I don't even have to care about Firewire in this regard (though of course Firewire 400 is pretty standard on most PCs). My enclosures are dual connect capable, eSATA and USB 2. The USB 2 comes in useful for a number of media devices, such as TVs with USB, Macs, etc.

[hmurchison]

Light Peak is the future. There's no real need for USB3 and FW3200. Both Apple and Intel have placed their bets on optical technology running at 10Gbps and smartly so since it supports multiple protocols. (source: IDF 2009)

[kresh]

I was hoping to see tests that had the system under load and performing file operations. It would be nice to see the same tests performed in this article but with the machines running Handbrake converting with 2 pass, deinterlace & deblock.

Since my iMac is almost always converting video it would be nice to see if this has a dramatic impact on file operations to a USB drive vs a Firewire drive.

[cabelaj]

Boy. Now this makes me wanna plug somthing into my Fire wire 800. To bad I dont have anything.