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abrody · Mar 22, 2002, 08:49 AM

Anyone see one? USB 2 hard drives are cheaper than Firewire, and it would make sense for someone to make one.

BigMark · Mar 22, 2002, 05:21 PM

er... I don't think so myself. FireWire is SO much faster than USB. USB is slow and slightly less 'stable' - plug more than a few things in and the system (at least in OS 9) will be going shithouse figuring out drivers etc.

mdcarter1 · Mar 22, 2002, 06:19 PM

Originally posted by BigMark:
er... I don't think so myself. FireWire is SO much faster than USB. USB is slow and slightly less 'stable' - plug more than a few things in and the system (at least in OS 9) will be going shithouse figuring out drivers etc.

He is talking about USB2, which is faster than Firewire supposedly.

Paul S · Mar 22, 2002, 06:39 PM

The key word there is supposedly. From everything I've read, real world performance is not as good as FireWire. The technical limit for FW is 400Mbit/s and USB 2 is 480Mbits/s. Tests I've seen show USB 2 as much slower in sustained transfer rates with hard drives. With FireWire 2 (800Mbit/s) on the horizon, it's definitely the way to go.

nana2 · Mar 22, 2002, 08:31 PM

It all depends on the bridge chips.

abrody · Mar 23, 2002, 01:20 PM

Right, well I still would like to get a USB 2 hard drive connected if someone made an adapter to connect to Firewire. It should in theory cost a lot less than buying a Firewire hard drive. The question is still on the floor, has anyone done it? Thank you.

G4ME · Mar 23, 2002, 02:38 PM

in stead of USB 2 to Firewire, you could get a USB 2 card less hastle

I still don't inder stand the need for anything over 400Mb/s, no drive can reach over 40 sustained, and a firewire raid by VST can do what 150mb/s, so what advantage would firewire 2 have over the first one, It would be sweet if it was wireless, at 100Mb/s I would do that.

kennethmac2000 · Mar 23, 2002, 05:16 PM

Originally posted by abrody:
Anyone see one?

Don't know how that would work. It's not like making a USB to serial adapter. A USB 2 bus needs a host controller. Could you have a USB 2 host controller on a FireWire bus!?

abrody · Mar 23, 2002, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by G4ME:
in stead of USB 2 to Firewire, you could get a USB 2 card less hastle

I still don't inder stand the need for anything over 400Mb/s, no drive can reach over 40 sustained, and a firewire raid by VST can do what 150mb/s, so what advantage would firewire 2 have over the first one, It would be sweet if it was wireless, at 100Mb/s I would do that.

That would work, except there is no PCI card port in the iMac. That's the reason I would need a USB 2 adapter for Firewire.

[ 03-23-2002: Message edited by: abrody ]

nana2 · Mar 23, 2002, 08:41 PM

The cost of such an adaptor will mean that you will probably never see such a thing. It's certainly going to cost more than the difference between a USB and a Firewire external enclosure.

nana2 · Mar 23, 2002, 08:47 PM

Originally posted by G4ME:

I still don't inder stand the need for anything over 400Mb/s, no drive can reach over 40 sustained, and a firewire raid by VST can do what 150mb/s, so what advantage would firewire 2 have over the first one, It would be sweet if it was wireless, at 100Mb/s I would do that.

Firewire is 400 Megabits/sec (Mbit/sec), which is 50 Megabytes/sec (MB/sec)
Firewire 2 is 800 Megabits/sec, which is 100 MB/sec.

OldManMac · Mar 23, 2002, 10:09 PM

Originally posted by nana2:
The cost of such an adaptor will mean that you will probably never see such a thing. It's certainly going to cost more than the difference between a USB and a Firewire external enclosure.

Bingo!

Eug · Mar 24, 2002, 08:59 AM

Originally posted by G4ME:
in stead of USB 2 to Firewire, you could get a USB 2 card less hastle

I still don't inder stand the need for anything over 400Mb/s, no drive can reach over 40 sustained, and a firewire raid by VST can do what 150mb/s, so what advantage would firewire 2 have over the first one, It would be sweet if it was wireless, at 100Mb/s I would do that.

Currently non-RAID firewire has a realworld max speed of about 35 MB/s, which is slower than the sustained transfer rate of several IDE drives on the market. (Mind you, I don't know if the USB 2 solutions out there are any faster.)

G4ME · Mar 24, 2002, 10:19 AM

Originally posted by nana2:


Firewire is 400 Megabits/sec (Mbit/sec), which is 50 Megabytes/sec (MB/sec)
Firewire 2 is 800 Megabits/sec, which is 100 MB/sec.

My Bad, damn those bytes and bits. Now I understand, and Now I want firewire 2 for my 80X CD Burner.

abrody · Mar 24, 2002, 11:50 AM

Originally posted by nana2:
The cost of such an adaptor will mean that you will probably never see such a thing. It's certainly going to cost more than the difference between a USB and a Firewire external enclosure.

Why do you think it would cost so much? I mean there is a USB to SCSI adapter, Firewire to SCSI adapter. Given enough time and supply and demand there could be a much lower cost than you assume. Most every componant decreases in price for computing as it stays in the market long enough. I've already seen Airport cards drop to $50 at Circuit City. And for that matter 4 port ethernet routers for $50 as well. Granted RAM prices fluctuate, and the iMac temporarily had to be increased in price, but most componants lose value in the computer world. I still don't see why someone won't make such an adapter. There are plenty of Mac users who might want USB 2 if it could be brought to under $80 for a cable that makes the switch. $80 is the cost of a Firewire external enclosure the last I looked.