Does anyone use FireWire?

[Adabiviak]

I've got several FireWire headers on my mobo, and I see them fairly frequently on a lot of systems, but I'm sure I haven't seen a device that uses this interface for a long time, although I know they exist. Do you use FireWire? What for? Do you prefer FireWire over USB?

 

[Asus]

Ipod...External harddrive...Digital Video camcorder.

 

[Revisedsoul]

everything i use is usb. but i wish it was firewire.

 

[PunisherUSA]

My old video camera has both usb and firewire ports. It seems the usb one broke, so I use firewire for that whenever i film stuff.

 

[sinkoman]

Damn near everything that is USB has a FireWire counter part. Besides input devices that is.

I think it's just a luxury. Too lazy to wait for your vids to load off your usb camcorder, buy a firewire cable for it. Think your external hdd is running sluggish on usb 2.0, buy a firewire one nextime you're in the market.

 

[duffers20]

I only use firewire for my 3rd gen ipod because you can't charge through the usb port. I tested the speed of both one day for transfering a 50mb file onto the ipod and the usb was only slightly faster, which makes sense because usb2.0 operates at 480mbit/s which is 60mb/s and firewire operates at 400mbits/s which is 50mb/s. Both connection types are very good, and I dont think there is much difference between them. Have to say that Usb is more popular though, as you see more usb ports than firewire on motherboards these days.

 

[Maxi]

Isn't there differnet types of Firewire? 400 and 800? what's the difference between them and compared to usb 2.0?

 

[PvtRyan]

Isn't there differnet types of Firewire? 400 and 800? what's the difference between them and compared to usb 2.0?

400 is slower than USB2, 800 is faster.

 

[Asus]

400 is slower than USB2, 800 is faster.

Only by the rated speed. By performance, firewire is faster on all acounts. USB takes a lot of CPU resources, firewire doesn't.

If you do a lot of work with a Digital Camcorder then Firewire is a must. USB is just a there for compatibility for the masses. Editing programs can take directly from Firewire, such as Adobe Premiere and Ulead studio.

But most other things USB is perfectly fine, just slower.