USB 2.0 beats out Firewire over at GamePC

[NFS4]

Hmmmm, I see a bright future for USB 2.0

http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=diskinterfaces&page=1&mscssid=&tp=

I guess we'll just have to see what happend with the new 1394b, 800 Mbps standard:Q

 

[bex0rs]

So lets see....

Firewire = 400 mbit/s = 50 MB/s

USB 2.0 = 480 mbits/s = 60 MB/s

There is currently no IDE hard drive out, and certainly not the one they tested, that can exceed the bandwidth of either of these interfaces in sustained transfers.

This was really a test of the performance of the particular bridgeboards used, not the transfer interface.

The latest firewire bridgeboards result in almost no performance loss, as compared to a "direct" ide connection.

~bex0rs

 

[rbV5]

<< Firewire = 400 mbit/s = 50 MB/s >>





<< There is currently no IDE hard drive out, and certainly not the one they tested, that can exceed the bandwidth of either of these interfaces >>



Is there a firewire hardrive that even approaches that transfer rate? Admittingly, its been awhile since I was looking into it, but at that time IIRC, there wasn't one I could find that came even close..just wondering.

 

[NFS4]

<< So lets see....

Firewire = 400 mbit/s = 50 MB/s

USB 2.0 = 480 mbits/s = 60 MB/s

There is currently no IDE hard drive out, and certainly not the one they tested, that can exceed the bandwidth of either of these interfaces in sustained transfers.

This was really a test of the performance of the particular bridgeboards used, not the transfer interface.

The latest firewire bridgeboards result in almost no performance loss, as compared to a "direct" ide connection.

~bex0rs >>


There will ALWAYS be a loss when compared to dedicated IDE interfaces. If there wasn't a loss, we'd all be using firewire connections inside our computer because of the reduced cable size. And remember, 50MB/s and 60MB/s are just THEORETICAL speeds under OPTIMUM conditions.

 

[Pariah]

GamePC needs to stop posting reviews. This wasn't a review of interface speed, but a comparison of random IDE-to-whatever bridge speed. I don't know about the USB 2 enclosure, but the Maxtor firewire enclosure is a very poor performer. They should have chosen a better enclosure like Granite Digital.

Their conclusion that "they [IDE] have easily broken the max bandwidth that these two I/O ports can supply," clearly shows they don't have a clue as to what they are talking about. If an interface is capable of 50-60MB/s, actual performance closer to 15MB/s shows a bottleneck somewhere else besides the interface, in this case the bridge.

The new WD1200BB can exceed 50MB/s so fire wire has met its match there, but until a closer to zero penalty bridge is developed, it doesn't matter.

 

[StormRider]

I wished they also tested CPU utilization. I heard that USB is more CPU intensive than Firewire and wanted to see if this was true.

Other than that, I'm impressed with USB 2.0.

 

[Bovinicus]

Yes, there are harddrive that are getting exceedingly close to 50MB/s. I read a review of one the other day, though I can't seem to remember which drive it was. I believe it was a WD. Let me do some searching and I'll get back to you...

 

[Bovinicus]

The WD1200BB is capable of reaching an outertrack transfer rate of 49MB/s. If one considers the overhead associated with data transfer mediums, it can easily be seen that the maximum theoretical throughput acheived by firewire could possibly limit the sustained transfer rate of this drive. It will definitely limit the burst transfers. The inner track transfer rate drops to 29.1MB/s. Check out the review on www.storagereview.com to see for yourself.