[cmeisenzahl]

I have a USB 2.0 external HD that I use for my PC (80GB Lacie). It works great, no problems.

I see that my G4 iBook has USB and a Firewire port. What's the difference beyond the obvious connection? Is Firewire like a proprietary Apple version of USB 2.0?

Can I connect my USB 2.0 HD and have it mount on the Panther iBook w/ no trouble?

Would I be better off w/ a firewire external drive?

Thanks again guys, working my way through a couple of Pogue books right now. Lovin my Mac. :-)


Chris

[chabig]

Both Firewire and USB are open standards.

Apple invented ADB as a low speed serial bus for connecting keyboards and mice to computers. Intel created USB to copy ADB because daisy-chainable peripheral have lots of nice advantages and although they could have licensed ADB, Intel HATES paying for anything.

Apple then invented firewire as a high speed serial interface for hard drives and video. Again, Intel wasn't willing to license firewire so they tried to build USB into a high speed interface--USB 2. However, as is common with technology, USB 2 carries a lot of limitations from its original slow speed foundation.

Several advantages firewire possesses:

1. It can supply a lot more power than USB
2. Devices can transfer data directly to each other without a computer. In USB chains, all of the data has to go through the computer.
3. Firewire is faster
4. Firewire can guarantee time based data delivery (critical for video)

Ironically, USB was going nowhere until Apple popularized it with the original iMac. Now USB is ubiquitous because Intel includes it on all PC motherboards. Still, Firewire is still the way to go for high speed and video.

Chris

[chabig]

To answer your specific question, a USB hard drive will mount just fine on your iBook. But it won't perform as well as firewire drive (although you probably won't notice).

If you're only going to use the hard drive with your machine, I'd recommend firewire. If you want to transport the drive between computers I would recommend a firewire/USB combo drive. I would never buy a USB only hard drive.

Chris

[cmeisenzahl]

Thanks very much guys, great info!

[Krusty]

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/usb20vsfirewire/

http://www.firewire-1394.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

That's a couple of articles giving you a little overview.
Bascially, FW was the only game in town for plug-and-play high speed data transfer for YEARS until USB 2.0 was developed. DV Camcorders are almost exclusively Firewire and until very recently, high-speed external drives were usually Firewire due to the speed limitations of USB 1.1

In every test I've seen, Firewire still edges out USB 2.0 for total throughput, but they are reasonably equivalent standards these days. As mentioned above, USB is arbitrated from the computer, making it better suited for peripheral devices like printers, etc. Firewire establishes peer-to-peer connections, making it better for pushing large amounts of continuous data from one device to another. Just take a look at what sorts of peripherals come with Firewire and what sorts come with USB and that almost tells the tale about which thing excels at what type of task.

[turtle777]

I'd take FW over USB2 ANY day without hesitation.

-t