Eric Gill wrote:
> "Michael Frazier" <MLFrazierJr@aol.com> wrote in
> news:4p4Ha.85950$hd6.2138@fed1read05: 
> 
> 
>>I thought Firewire was much slower than USB 2.0 ???
> 
> 
> That's the theory, yes. Reality is something quite different.
> 
> 
>>Can a balanced (read non-Macaholic) please enlighten us all on this?
> 
> 
> I use PCs with a Canon Powershot G1, and the fastest Compact Flash cards 
> I can find. After getting tired of how damnably slow USB 1.1 worked, I 
> bought a USB 2.0 faceplate reader and a 1394 external reader.
> 
> USB 2.0 was about five times faster than 1.1, which is nice. FW was no 
> less than *thirty* (30). Literally a jaw-dropping difference - watching 
> the copy status flicker for a few moments and seeing hundreds of files 
> appear in the target directory.
> 
> I used to copy everything into one directory than thumbnail from there to 
> sort the pics. Now I thumbnail from the card - it is just *barely* slower 
> than from 7200RPM ATA133 drives.
> 
> FW is a more mature standard that actually achieves something near it's 
> theoretical limits. USB isn't, and doesn't.
> 

Either standard can be faster, depending on what you're doing.
Firewire is great for streaming aplications, like reading memory cards, and 
it's much faster than USB 2.0 for that. For CD reading/burning, USB 2.0 
usually gets the edge. For scanning or printing USB 1.1 is usually enough.

Overall, I think Firewire is better, but it's also more expensive.


Flux