Firewire networking - the next "ethernet" ?

[Valhalla1]

I read somewhere that fireware was poised to become the next ethernet (i.e. the next networking medium standard)

this sounds interesting.. it would be nice to have all peripherals and network running firewire, and the speed figures I saw were well above gigabit ethernet

anyone running a firewire network now? what kind of transfer speeds can you get between pc's sharing files... i assume you get some sort of firewire network adapter that uses tcp/ip over iee 1394.. how much do these cost, and what kind of support is there for such things in XP and linux 2.4.x ?

 

[jhu]

yeah, would be a nice network medium if we could have cables longer than a couple feet. in light of that, ethernet's way better.

 

[spidey07]

kindof like how 100 meg token ring was the next big thing???

<edit> let me back that up with many tried and died technologies hoping to topple ethernet. Today - you can buy a 100 Megabit ethernet card (way faster than your hard drive) for 10 bucks. WOW. WOWOWOWWOWOW. Networks today are truly faster than the hosts attached to them given gigabit ethernet. Also 10 Gig ethernet is out and I'm sure will follow the footsteps to amazingly fast, amazingly cheap deployment that his brothers have laid down. That and the distance limits of firewire (which is very similar to ethernet so I hear).

 

[ScottMac]

Yeah....alla what Spidey said...AND...if you think making a UTP jumper is a hoot, take a shot at firewire...(AND they're way more expensive to buy....AND "It came from Apple"...folks with a bad networking reputation).

(IMHO) If anything is gonna replace UTP, most likely it'll be something over fiber or wireless (like a wireless DWDM 16 gig system).

FWIW

Scott

 

[dartblazer]

good links are here and also here.

 

[Athlex]

What is the limitation of firewire cable length? 14 feet?
The second article that Dartblazer linked to mentioned that the IEEE has blessed IP over firewire as a standard. Was the same done for USB? I remember some time ago MSI was plugging USB networking as a "feature" of their motherboards...
-Atx

 

[Valhalla1]

10gig ethernet? wow.. didnt know that was around.. gigabit runs over regular cat5 right? what about 10gb?

 

[ktwebb]

"100 Megabit ethernet card (way faster than your hard drive)"

How do you figure that spidey? 100Mb=12.5MB and as you know you would never see that. Even legacy ATA33 is faster than a 100 Mb ethernet network card can push data. Variables are at work of course but with ATA66 a standard and ATA133 available, the bottleneck is the ethernet cards not the hard drives. Gigabet ethernet is obviously a differenct story.

 

[Athlex]

Valhalla1,
GigE can run over Cat5E (5e for "enhanced") cable. I've also heard that it uses all 8 wires, unlike FE which only uses 4. GigE can also run on duplex fiber (one to transmit, one to receive) and I imagine this is a must for 10Gb ethernet.

 

[spidey07]

<< Even legacy ATA33 is faster than a 100 Mb ethernet network card can push data >>



true, maybe my brain was stuck in older times.

 

[dman]

<< Even legacy ATA33 is faster than a 100 Mb ethernet network card can push data >>
The spec maybe, but, the drives themselves rarely exceeded 7MB sustained xfer, at least in my experience.

 

[ktwebb]

Thus the "variables at work" comment. That was concerning ATA33 anyway.

 

[Eug]

So how do I network with Firewire anyway?

I have just installed XP and it installed my Iwill/VIA Firewire card with a bunch of network drivers, as well as TCP/IP. I now have a little tray icon hooked displaying "400 Mbps" but it's hooked up to nothing.

I have a Mac iBook with Firewire. Can I network this way, or should I just stick to 100 Mbps Ethernet?

I installed the card in preparation for my external Firewire (IDE) drive. I wonder what having all this extra TCP/IP stuff, etc. will affect using a hard drive.

 

[777php]

in XP your firewire connection will appear under LAN or High Speed Internet, you can then configure it accordingly.