[Gamoe]

It looks like Intel is working on USB 3.0 with "realistic" expectations of peripherals being out on the market by 2010. I suppose that means that Apple will incorporate it into its "consumer" line sometime in 2015, if it's anything like Apple's USB 2.0 timeframe

Of course, Apple is much (too perhaps) cozier with Intel these days, too. If so, I do fear this spells the end for Firewire, though.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Gamoe 

It looks like Intel is working on USB 3.0 with "realistic" expectations of peripherals being out on the market by 2010. I suppose that means that Apple will incorporate it into its "consumer" line sometime in 2015, if it's anything like Apple's USB 2.0 timeframe

Of course, Apple is much (too perhaps) cozier with Intel these days, too. If so, I do fear this spells the end for Firewire, though.

Intel designs Apple's motherboards now. It'll be included very quickly.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Gamoe 

Of course, Apple is much (too perhaps) cozier with Intel these days, too. If so, I do fear this spells the end for Firewire, though.

If the USB 3.0 standard supports the same throughput found in FireWire, then yes, FW will be phased out. Very few devices that are not designed specifically for Macs actually use FireWire - Apple even dropped it from their own iPod line (which I think was utter BS, as it leaves those of us with older Macs out in the cold, due to Apple's stubborn refusal to implement USB 2.0 for far too long).

FireWire won't die off entirely for a little while - every mini-DV camcorder on the market uses it, because of the aforementioned data transfer sustained throughput speeds. But at some point, you're just going to have to embrace the fact that FireWire isn't getting any improvements. FW800 came out, but it uses a proprietary connector. The USB standard has been backwards-compatible since day one, and I'm guessing that this new 3.0 implementation will be no different. Backwards compatibility when it comes to peripherals is crucial, and since FW800 doesn't work with FW400, it's not a very good alternative to the USB route.

[SpaceMonkey]

Yeah. I've decided to not spend money on any more Firewire peripherals at this point (I don't do any video work, though).

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

If the USB 3.0 standard supports the same throughput found in FireWire, then yes, FW will be phased out. Very few devices that are not designed specifically for Macs actually use FireWire - Apple even dropped it from their own iPod line (which I think was utter BS, as it leaves those of us with older Macs out in the cold, due to Apple's stubborn refusal to implement USB 2.0 for far too long).

FireWire won't die off entirely for a little while - every mini-DV camcorder on the market uses it, because of the aforementioned data transfer sustained throughput speeds. But at some point, you're just going to have to embrace the fact that FireWire isn't getting any improvements. FW800 came out, but it uses a proprietary connector. The USB standard has been backwards-compatible since day one, and I'm guessing that this new 3.0 implementation will be no different. Backwards compatibility when it comes to peripherals is crucial, and since FW800 doesn't work with FW400, it's not a very good alternative to the USB route.

Firewire won't be going anywhere anytime soon, but it also probably won't become more widespread any time soon, simply because it offers a solution--high, sustained throughput--most people people don't need. The reason it's the standard in the video world is that those people need that ability. For almost everything else you hook up to your computer USB is fine. You don't need 50 MB/s for a keyboard, or a mouse, or a joystick.

The other place you will continue to see Firewire is external drives, as USB 2.0 gives, at best, about 15 MB/s sustained, whereas Firewire will give near its theoretical maximum. The only thing which may kill it is eSATA, but it's a little to soon to make that call.

[imitchellg5]

I hope they keep FireWire. I still use it a ton since I don't have a USB 2.0 port on my Power Mac. I do wish new iPods would work with FireWire.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

FW800 came out, but it uses a proprietary connector. The USB standard has been backwards-compatible since day one, and I'm guessing that this new 3.0 implementation will be no different. Backwards compatibility when it comes to peripherals is crucial, and since FW800 doesn't work with FW400, it's not a very good alternative to the USB route.

FW800 works fine with FW400. You just need a 9-pin to 6-pin cable and poof, you're done. The reason they changed the connector on FW800 was because the 6-pin connector for FW400 was badly designed. It was too easy to accidentally force in the wrong way, and if you did, it would short out the controller and fry it, which is why it's not that uncommon to find lab computers in schools with non-working FireWire ports. Yes, you have to get a cable to adapt FW800 to FW400 devices, but what's the most common usage of FireWire? Video cameras. Do they use the 6-pin connector? No, they don't! They use the smaller 4-pin connector, and frankly I don't see any ease of use advantage in having to buy a 6-pin to 4-pin cable vs. having to buy a 9-pin to 4-pin cable.

IMO, the thing that killed FireWire was the way Apple kept treating it as a high-end feature. If they hadn't charged huge licensing fees to third-parties, if FireWire had been a standard feature that shipped on all iMacs from the very first one on, thus allowing FireWire to ride the iMac wave that helped USB become so popular, and if they had replaced the problematic FW400 with FW800 immediately on all machines as soon as it became available, I can bet you that FireWire would be a lot more popular today than it is.

[PaperNotes]

No matter what happens, Firewire will be around as long as the PC serial and parallel port. There have been millions of firewire enabled iPods, cameras and hard drives sold in the world that will still be useful for years to come. The latest HD cameras also have Firewire.

[PaperNotes]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

If they hadn't charged huge licensing fees to third-parties, if FireWire had been a standard feature that shipped on all iMacs from the very first one on, thus allowing FireWire to ride the iMac wave that helped USB become so popular, and if they had replaced the problematic FW400 with FW800 immediately on all machines as soon as it became available, I can bet you that FireWire would be a lot more popular today than it is.

The licensing fees were set to keep the technology in the hands of those companies that Apple wanted to work with, primarily Sony. It didn't want firewire appearing on shoddy products because it wouldn't have been taken seriously as a professional interface. Apple needed revenue in those days and needed firewire to be taken seriously so they could take a higher licensing fee. It was about quality control.

As for the iMac, prior to the 400Mhz DV model they weren't powerful enough to handle DVD playback very well or anything serious that firewire could be useful for. External hard drives were too expensive and had very low capacity. Firewire at the time was to be used for video capture so it was included when a decent CPU could be matched to it that could handle DV and DVD playback.

[mduell]

Apple wanted to charge everyone $1/port to license the patents they owned relating to the IEEE1394 standard. The other members who developed the standard pointed out that they also owned patents, and if Apple wanted to go down that road they would have to pay $15/port to cover all the other members. Eventually they all got together and created the 1394 Licensing Authority. More of the story here, from the head of Firewire development at Apple.

[Big Mac]

Does anyone really buy Intel's speed projection here? I don't know if it makes that much sense that we'd see such a considerable increase.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Does anyone really buy Intel's speed projection here? I don't know if it makes that much sense that we'd see such a considerable increase.

I don't think the estimate of 4.8 Gigabit is what we'll get, maybe 2 to 2.5, but I don't know.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

The licensing fees were set to keep the technology in the hands of those companies that Apple wanted to work with, primarily Sony. It didn't want firewire appearing on shoddy products because it wouldn't have been taken seriously as a professional interface. Apple needed revenue in those days and needed firewire to be taken seriously so they could take a higher licensing fee. It was about quality control.

Say what you want, but those high licensing fees were part of what spurred Intel to develop USB 2.0, which led to the downfall of FireWire.

As for the iMac, prior to the 400Mhz DV model they weren't powerful enough to handle DVD playback very well or anything serious that firewire could be useful for. External hard drives were too expensive and had very low capacity. Firewire at the time was to be used for video capture so it was included when a decent CPU could be matched to it that could handle DV and DVD playback.

Um, no. FireWire was to be used as a replacement to SCSI, which had shipped on every previous Mac all the way back to the Mac Plus. SCSI had been used for years for things like external hard drives (which were not "too expensive", nor did they have any less capacity than internal drives, especially in the case of FireWire where the drive basically is an internal drive in an external enclosure), external removable storage, such as Zip and Jaz drives (very popular back then), magneto-optical, and, oh, CD burners. All of these things had no decent way to connect them on the iMac, so what happened? A market cropped up for USB 1.1 hard drives, USB 1.1 Zip drives, USB 1.1 CD burners, USB-to-SCSI adapters, and a host of other uses for which USB 1.1 was completely unsuitable, but for which there was no other option that would work better. So you had USB 1.1 hard drives that were dog slow even just for backing stuff up - I wouldn't even want to think about trying to use one of these as an external boot drive - and USB CD burners to which the computer could rarely supply data fast enough via the USB interface, so you'd get buffer underrun errors every time unless you remembered to manually ratchet down the burning speed. Is it any surprise that Intel decided to speed up the USB standard? I can't imagine how many potential switchers Apple must have lost as they got frustrated by things like CD burning never working and switched back to Wintel. That was the iMac - the machine that figured you didn't really need to ever back up your data. Thank God Apple has since come around on that one.

Don't kid yourself about FireWire having been intended only for video - sure, now it's used mostly for video. But I remember when they introduced FireWire in the Blue and White G3, and the idea was that USB and FireWire were to be two complementary technologies - USB for mice, keyboards, printers, etc., and FireWire for bigger stuff. I even remember people at the time being hopeful that FireWire would become sufficiently popular that hard drives would begin to be manufactured that would use FireWire natively as an interface, like with SCSI, and as such would no longer need a bridge chip. Apparently Apple was hoping this too, because the early G4 machines actually had an internal FireWire port (I'd like to see how you'd link that one to a video camcorder). And it all might have worked, too, if Apple had put FireWire on all the iMacs, thus giving it the same Mac market share as USB.

[Kenneth]

It sounds good. In the meantime, I still enjoy the connivence of FireWire.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Does anyone really buy Intel's speed projection here? I don't know if it makes that much sense that we'd see such a considerable increase.

Do you mean the raw signaling speed or the actual throughput?
I expect the raw signaling to be 4.8Gbps, but the practical throughput may only be 200-300MBps (after 8B/10B encoding and other overhead). It really depends on how much processing power they put in the controller.

[PaperNotes]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Um, no. FireWire was to be used as a replacement to SCSI, which had shipped on every previous Mac all the way back to the Mac Plus.

Please don't start with a premature "um, no". It's very goMac.

We were talking about the iMac, a consumer machine. Apple replaced SCSI with Firewire on their pro G3 machines but felt no need for firewire on their consumer machines until they were capable of handling DV and DVD. We weren't talking about pro machines, we said iMac. Hence, the 400Mhz iMac DV was the first consumer model with firewire and DVD.

I will add that firewire only replaced SCSI on PowerBooks after the magic 400Mhz (minimum needed for smooth DV and DVD playback) was reached. The 400Mhz Lombard was quickly replaced by the Pismo. Proof that Apple firstly saw firewire and a 400Mhz G3 as necessary for DV capture, and secondarily as a replacement for SCSI. If it was otherwise, firewire would have been included earlier. They wanted to kill two birds with one stone and knew a digital video revolution was around the corner. You surely must remember that there were hardly any firewire hard drives or devices around, certainly not even close to affordable, at a time when DV cameras with firewire were becoming plentiful.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

Please don't start with a premature "um, no". It's very goMac.

I shall start my posts however I please. If you don't want an "um, no", then don't make ridiculous assertions, and you won't get one.

We were talking about the iMac, a consumer machine. Apple replaced SCSI with Firewire on their pro G3 machines but felt no need for firewire on their consumer machines until they were capable of handling DV and DVD. We weren't talking about pro machines, we said iMac. Hence, the 400Mhz iMac DV was the first consumer model with firewire and DVD.

Well, it's quite obvious that Apple didn't feel a need for FireWire on their consumer machines, since they didn't put it on them. That's not what we're discussing, though. We're discussions whether Apple should have felt a need for some kind of high-speed bus on their consumer machines. I am arguing that they should have, because:

- All of Apple's previous consumer machines since the mid-80s included SCSI. The iMac replaced SCSI with nothing, and as such you couldn't have a decent external hard disk, external storage device, or CD burner. This was a problem, as CD burning was a technology that was starting to become very popular among consumers (when Apple eventually added CD burners to their machines and introduced iTunes, Steve Jobs admitted on stage that Apple was "late to the party" on this one), and since backing up is something that everyone should do.

- Apple's refusal to put FireWire on all its machines and their licensing policy created the USB storage device market, which caused consumers to become used to USB as a mechanism for connecting storage devices rather than simply mice and keyboards, thus assisting USB 2.0 in stealing much of FireWire's market later on and contributing to FireWire's decline in popularity.

Please respond to my actual points instead of just spouting obvious tautologies like "Apple didn't put FireWire on the consumer machines because they didn't think it was necessary."

I will add that firewire only replaced SCSI on PowerBooks after the magic 400Mhz (minimum needed for smooth DV and DVD playback) was reached. The 400Mhz Lombard was quickly replaced by the Pismo. Proof that Apple firstly saw firewire and a 400Mhz G3 as necessary for DV capture, and secondarily as a replacement for SCSI.

I fail to see how the clock speed of a machine is proof of anything, although the presence of an internal FireWire port on some of their towers seems to be much more clear proof that Apple did intend FireWire to be a replacement for SCSI. Heck, the FireWire standard itself was based on SCSI. It also contained a bunch of SCSI features like daisy-chaining which don't make much sense for DV.

Not to mention that a 400 MHz G3 as a requirement for DV is kind of ridiculous - people had been editing video with VideoSpigot cards and Adobe Premiere long before the G3 era (and even before the PowerPC era!).

You surely must remember that there were hardly any firewire hard drives or devices around, certainly not even close to affordable, at a time when DV cameras with firewire were becoming plentiful.

Um, considering that I bought a few FireWire devices during that era, it would seem they were available. They weren't as plentiful as USB - because Apple didn't include FireWire on all their machines! So if you were a storage company, USB would make you more money, because more customers would be able to buy your product. It's kind of my whole point!

Regardless, there were plenty of FireWire devices available, they weren't that much more expensive (and if the iMac had FireWire, they would have been less expensive than they were due to economies of scale), and of course you could always go get a FireWire enclosure and put any IDE device you wanted in it, giving you a more or less infinite variety of devices - just like today!

[goMac]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

Please don't start with a premature "um, no". It's very goMac.

Reported!!!111!11
No, not really reported

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

We were talking about the iMac, a consumer machine. Apple replaced SCSI with Firewire on their pro G3 machines but felt no need for firewire on their consumer machines until they were capable of handling DV and DVD. We weren't talking about pro machines, we said iMac. Hence, the 400Mhz iMac DV was the first consumer model with firewire and DVD.

Having been to demos that Apple did when they introduced Firewire, Firewire was certainly pushed as the new SCSI. I only saw it demoed for hard drives actually, and I never saw Apple demo it for video, although obviously Firewire was also widely used for video. I'm not saying Apple didn't recognize it wasn't important for video too, but Firewire was first and foremost a high speed replacement for SCSI.

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

I will add that firewire only replaced SCSI on PowerBooks after the magic 400Mhz (minimum needed for smooth DV and DVD playback) was reached. The 400Mhz Lombard was quickly replaced by the Pismo. Proof that Apple firstly saw firewire and a 400Mhz G3 as necessary for DV capture, and secondarily as a replacement for SCSI. If it was otherwise, firewire would have been included earlier. They wanted to kill two birds with one stone and knew a digital video revolution was around the corner. You surely must remember that there were hardly any firewire hard drives or devices around, certainly not even close to affordable, at a time when DV cameras with firewire were becoming plentiful.

This is a funny argument, considering a I still have posters from the Wallstreet Powerbook marketing campaign, where it was pushed as a cutting edge DV machine. Machines were editing video well before hitting the 400 mhz mark, and I see no reason why a pre-400 mhz machine wouldn't be able to edit video on a Firewire source.

Considering that the iMac and the Powerbook G3 were based on the same motherboard, it's not surprising that they both got Firewire at the some clock speeds. Remember, the iBook got Firewire at 366 mhz, and the Power Mac got it at 300 mhz. I don't think 400 mhz is significant except for being the motherboard revision that Apple decided to give the Powerbooks/iMacs Firewire. When Apple launched the Power Mac G3, it was pretty clear that Firewire was the replacement for SCSI and USB was the replacement for serial and ADB.

[PaperNotes]

Love it.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Say what you want, but those high licensing fees were part of what spurred Intel to develop USB 2.0, which led to the downfall of FireWire.

"Downfall" is a little much.

USB is not an alternative for serious audio *or* video production, and won't be at least until USB 3.0.

Guaranteed sustained datarates are simply mandatory in A/V.

And as such, Firewire is neither "dead" nor affected by a "downfall", really. It just became a niche standards - albeit in heavily growing niches.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogika 

"Downfall" is a little much.

USB is not an alternative for serious audio *or* video production, and won't be at least until USB 3.0.

Guaranteed sustained datarates are simply mandatory in A/V.

And as such, Firewire is neither "dead" nor affected by a "downfall", really. It just became a niche standards - albeit in heavily growing niches.

Agreed. Firewire has become the standard for really only video transfer, as far as consumers are concerned. Apple pushed Firewire very hard for mass storage, even making the iPod firewire only for a long time, but ultimately or PC friends just failed to adopt it enough.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by analogika 

"Downfall" is a little much.

USB is not an alternative for serious audio *or* video production, and won't be at least until USB 3.0.

Guaranteed sustained datarates are simply mandatory in A/V.

And as such, Firewire is neither "dead" nor affected by a "downfall", really. It just became a niche standards - albeit in heavily growing niches.

Right, it found a niche in A/V. However, the standard was intended to be used for so much more than that, that it's pretty hard to argue against the fact that FireWire never even came close to realizing its potential.

FireWire neither dead nor in decline? How do you explain the fact that development seems to have nearly stopped on it? We should have had FireWire 1600 by now, but it's quite clear that that will never happen. If USB 3.0 is able to catch up to FireWire in sustained data rates, it could very well kill off FireWire altogether. As it is, it's already not used for much outside of its A/V niche except by us Mac-heads, and heck, even here it disappeared off of the iPod. And this makes me sad, because I like FireWire.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by analogika 

USB is not an alternative for serious audio *or* video production, and won't be at least until USB 3.0.

Guaranteed sustained datarates are simply mandatory in A/V.

And isochronous USB is what?

Originally Posted by goMac 

Apple pushed Firewire very hard for mass storage, even making the iPod firewire only for a long time, but ultimately or PC friends just failed to adopt it enough.

FW-only iPods only lasted one generation. Apple realized that FW was a pointless expense when USB2 was three times faster with the 3rd gen iPods and dumped it for the 4th gen.

[bballe336]

I won't be using USB, it cuts into CPU usage. When I work with HD footage I really can't afford for my external scratch drives to hiccup at all. Sustained transfer rates are a necessity in the video field. If apple doesn't update FW I predict many videographers and editors moving towards eSATA, especially as HD cameras become more accessible to everyone.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by mduell 

And isochronous USB is what?

Guaranteed sustained bandwidth. Apparently, though, "isochronous mode" not quite unproblematic.

And at what bandwidth does it operate reliably?

[analogika]

Originally Posted by mduell 

FW-only iPods only lasted one generation. Apple realized that FW was a pointless expense when USB2 was three times faster with the 3rd gen iPods and dumped it for the 4th gen.

Two generations.

Unfortunately, USB2 is causing a LOT more dead iPods, simply because USB devices are expected to REQUEST power before they actually get any, which in in ironic twist won't work if the iPod's battery is so low that the request mechanism can't be initiated. (A number of these iPods can be resurrected *immediately* simply by connecting them to a Firewire cable.)

Since that translates into more sales for Apple, though, I doubt they're concerned.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Two generations.

Isn't the iPod (dock connector) the second generation? Only the first gen had the FW port.

Originally Posted by analogika 

Unfortunately, USB2 is causing a LOT more dead iPods, simply because USB devices are expected to REQUEST power before they actually get any, which in in ironic twist won't work if the iPod's battery is so low that the request mechanism can't be initiated. (A number of these iPods can be resurrected *immediately* simply by connecting them to a Firewire cable.)

Since that translates into more sales for Apple, though, I doubt they're concerned.

The first 100mA on USB is free; you only have to ask if you want more.
There are more charging options in the On-The-Go/Battery Charging Specification, but I also think Apple would rather sell $66 battery replacements or 10% off new iPods instead.

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Apple wanted to charge everyone $1/port to license the patents they owned relating to the IEEE1394 standard. The other members who developed the standard pointed out that they also owned patents, and if Apple wanted to go down that road they would have to pay $15/port to cover all the other members. Eventually they all got together and created the 1394 Licensing Authority. More of the story here, from the head of Firewire development at Apple.

Thanks for the link! It had a lot of good info. It also indicates that Steve does have the ability to make bone-head decisions occasionally.

I agree with the peanut gallery here, that Firewire won't go away entirely, but it will be targeted mostly to power users that need the performance benefits. One of the side effects of the increased cooperation between Apple and Intel will be earlier adoption of USB 3.0.

Not sure why Ars Technica say that 5Gbps needs fiber optic cabling, since PCI Express 2.0 will use that signaling rate, but I guess that's not really meant for external peripheral connections. (I've seen PCIe 1.1 external cables, and they're bulky and expensive....)

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

Thanks for the link! It had a lot of good info. It also indicates that Steve does have the ability to make bone-head decisions occasionally.

Yup. The man's brilliant, but he's not a god, and he does make mistakes, the handling of FireWire being one of them (the current desktop lineup being another, but that's for another thread).

If Apple had played their cards right, USB 2.0 wouldn't exist, and this USB 3.0 we're hearing about now would be an even faster variant of FireWire instead. Ah well. As it is, FireWire is used for DV, sure, but the thing is that since it doesn't seem to be actively developed anymore, it's a stationary target. FireWire has a good sustained data rate, but that statistic stays the same while the competition just keeps getting faster and faster. It's only a matter of time before FireWire gets overtaken and becomes pointless.

I just hope that if FireWire does get shoved out of the market, Apple continues to have some way to make Target Disk Mode work on their computers. I don't think it's possible with USB...

[analogika]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Isn't the iPod (dock connector) the second generation? Only the first gen had the FW port.

Nope. Solid-state scroll wheel and 6-pin Firewire are second generation.

Dock connector and USB compatibility came with the 3rd-generation (along with those four stupid buttons along the top, which mercifully *left* with the 3rd-generation iPod, as well).

[Brien]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Isn't the iPod (dock connector) the second generation? Only the first gen had the FW port.

Nope. Second gen added the cover flap for the FW port and switched the scroll wheel from one that actually turned to a touch-based one.

3rd gen was the first dock-connector enabled one - the one with the 4 buttons on top. That was one of my favorite gens, no moving parts and backlit controls. So pocket-friendly.

Edit - Analogika beat me to it.

[mduell]

Huh, I guess I have a 4th gen iPod not a 3rd.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

I just hope that if FireWire does get shoved out of the market, Apple continues to have some way to make Target Disk Mode work on their computers. I don't think it's possible with USB...

I believe it can be done with USB OTG.

[indigoimac]

Did anyone read that a fiber cable is gonna be required?

Can you say pricey and fragile? If anything I think this will be competing almost exclusively w. eSATA for external HDs, Firewire 800 is a great technology but it can't compete w. eSATA and the bridge chips are expensive as all hell right now.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by indigoimac 

Firewire 800 is a great technology but it can't compete w. eSATA

Actually, although eSATA definitely is a faster interface, FW800 can compete with it much better than you'd think.

Mercury Elite Pro External eSATA, USB, and FireWire Hard Drive--Review: HDTach 3.01 Benchmark Tests

Mercury Elite Pro External eSATA, USB, and FireWire Hard Drive--Review: HDTach Throughput Benchmark Charts

[mduell]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Actually, although eSATA definitely is a faster interface, FW800 can compete with it much better than you'd think.

Mercury Elite Pro External eSATA, USB, and FireWire Hard Drive--Review: HDTach 3.01 Benchmark Tests

Mercury Elite Pro External eSATA, USB, and FireWire Hard Drive--Review: HDTach Throughput Benchmark Charts

The max transfer rate of that 320GB drive is holding back eSATA; throw in a terabyte or two and let 'er rip.

And of course an eSATA+USB2 enclosure costs a third as much as a FW800 enclosure.

[indigoimac]

I have one of those Mercury elite pros, it's their dual enclosure w. 2 SATA drives in it (1 80gig seagate 7200.7 and a seagate 320gig 7200.10 set up as 2 individual channels) that I use either over FW400 or 800 depending on the machine.

It's definitely a quality piece (god knows, for the 120$ or so that it cost me) I haven't bothered to benchmark it but it hasn't disappointed and isn't really much slower than my macbook pros internal 5400rpm 120gig fujitsu over FW800.

It is however noticeably slower than my iMac's 160gig internal sata seagate (7200.9? or .10? i dunno) over FW400, but it's still nice to have.

I haven't tried its USB2 yet, but I've never been impressed by USB2 in terms of sustained throughput, in my experience it has been nearly twice as slow when dealing w. macs and mass storage devices.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by mduell 

The max transfer rate of that 320GB drive is holding back eSATA; throw in a terabyte or two and let 'er rip.

Yeah, but most of us don't have drives that large yet.

And of course an eSATA+USB2 enclosure costs a third as much as a FW800 enclosure.

Don't forget you have to factor in the cost of an eSATA card, since Macs don't have it built-in. And also the price difference of a machine that has a card slot for it, since most Macs don't.

Why Apple can't build in an eSATA port on their machines is beyond me. <grumble>

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by mduell 

FW-only iPods only lasted one generation. Apple realized that FW was a pointless expense when USB2 was three times faster with the 3rd gen iPods and dumped it for the 4th gen.

The 4th gen is the 2004 "Click Wheel" model? This is the one I have, and mine shipped with both USB and Firewire connectors. I've only ever used the FW one, being as I don't have USB 2.0 on my eMac. The USB one is still rolled up like new.

I think its sad to see a superior, quality Apple technology like this dwindle. But, Apple seems to be at least partly responsible. In fact, they seem to have done it to themselves.

Whatever the outcome, what we don't need is a plethora of port types like in the days of old (serial, ADB, SCSI, etc.). I agree with the Apple philosophy of "cutting the fat" here. Let only one or two standards come about for the general computing industry. If that's USB, then let it be. It's already in the company of Ethernet, VGA/DVI and audio ports, just to name a few.

It's incredible how many PC companies hold on to old obsolete standards (PS/2, parallel, etc.) that are going to take ages to remove just because they are still available and being developed for. That's not what I'd like for the Mac.

Firewire was the better technology here, though, and I've often thought that the Intel switch was the last "nail in the coffin" for Firewire as some part of deal or understanding between Apple and Intel.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Gamoe 

The 4th gen is the 2004 "Click Wheel" model? This is the one I have, and mine shipped with both USB and Firewire connectors. I've only ever used the FW one, being as I don't have USB 2.0 on my eMac. The USB one is still rolled up like new.

The first iPods to drop Firewire were the 1st-gen nano and the 5th generation iPod (with video).

[ghporter]

Whether or not firewire is "superior" is a matter of opinion. It is great for streaming, but not so great for random access file transfers, whereas USB excels at random files at the expense of streaming. USB 2.0 works really, really well on iPods, and as long as your computer supports USB 2.0, that is a very efficient and effective way to go. And why should Apple use expensive and bulky components that would make the iPod more expensive and larger, when they can use ridiculously inexpensive and tiny components that are readily available? Many chip makers have spent lots of time and money developing USB hardware to the point that it's a single chip that takes almost no power at all, while it looks like nobody has spent a dime on advancing firewire components beyond their current large, expensive and power-hungry state.

[Dork.]

Firewire was really designed for Digital Video from the start. I remember when we were all talking about "convergence", and the fact that pretty soon there would be so much computer stuff in your home A/V equipment that you would hardly be able to tell the difference. And you would just connect your TV to your cable box to your DVD player/recorder with FireWire, and let the boxes figure out how to send data around.

We got convergence, all right: now, to your average consumer, your TV set and your computer are both so complicated to use that you can hardly understand any of it!

[l008com]

If USB 3.0 is like USB 2.0, apple might take forever to adopt it...

or if USB 3.0 is like USB 1.1, apple will adopt it LONG before everyone else.

Backwards compatibility is great, its too bad firewire 800 doesn't use the same port. I've been repairing computers for years and I've never seen a firewire port that had a plug forced in the wrong way.

But regardless of all this, what I'd like to see the most in USB 3.0, is more power. Meaning more electricity, so more bigger devices can become bus-powered. Like my label printer, for example.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

FW800 works fine with FW400. You just need a 9-pin to 6-pin cable and poof, you're done. The reason they changed the connector on FW800 was because the 6-pin connector for FW400 was badly designed. It was too easy to accidentally force in the wrong way, and if you did, it would short out the controller and fry it, which is why it's not that uncommon to find lab computers in schools with non-working FireWire ports.

Actually, I've only ever seen a FW400 connector forced in the wrong way be the cause of this ONCE.

FAR MORE COMMON is the fact that Apple royally ****ED UP their implementation of THEIR OWN ****ING SPEC on all iMacs and PowerBooks up until 2002 (machines serviced by Apple in late 2002 were partly modified, as can be seen in one of the images).

FireWire DEAD
Macの本体標準FireWireポートのご使用に 関して[RATOC]

Connecting a bus-powered device can cause a power spike that can blow the Firewire chip, which is NOT PROPERLY FUSED on those machines. Happened twice on my iMac DV, and a friend of mine blew the Firewire port on his titanium Powerbook THREE TIMES using a bus-powered audio interface that was completely within spec before getting his computer replaced with a new machine by Apple.

[CharlesS]

Okay, but I fail to see how the presence of another, separate bug which can also fry the FireWire ports changes anything about the poor design of the FW400 connector.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Okay, but I fail to see how the presence of another, separate bug which can also fry the FireWire ports changes anything about the poor design of the FW400 connector.

The fact that the allegedly "poor connector design" doesn't cause problems matters...but I'm not going to argue.

I was mostly just pointing out that the computer labs full of machines with dead Firewire ports are NOT caused by the connector design, but by Apple completely ****ing up the technical implementation.

IME, the connector really isn't an issue.

[ghporter]

Wouldn't you have to force it in REALLY hard? I mean REALLY hard? That connector shape is no "suggestion" for plug orientation...

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by analogika 

The fact that the allegedly "poor connector design" doesn't cause problems matters...but I'm not going to argue.

I've heard of the asinine "it never happened to me, so it never happens" argument enough times, but come on, this time you even admitted that you've seen it happen before. The fact is, it does happen, it is a known design flaw in the connector, it does cause problems, and in fact it's the reason they changed the connector for FW800. End of discussion.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Wouldn't you have to force it in REALLY hard? I mean REALLY hard? That connector shape is no "suggestion" for plug orientation...

Google it. Apparently, while it seems like it shouldn't be possible, people do it all the time. Apparently a lot of the connectors are made quite cheaply and as a result are much easier to force in backwards than you'd think.

It's for this reason that if I'm plugging a FireWire device in the back of a computer or DVR box where there's not enough room to turn it around enough to see what I'm doing, I am always very careful to thoroughly feel my way around the port with my finger to make sure of which direction it's oriented.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

I've heard of the asinine "it never happened to me, so it never happens" argument enough times, but come on, this time you even admitted that you've seen it happen before.

I think the argument of "never seen it happen" becomes *relatively* less asinine coming from somebody who actually works in support. And IIRC, I did actually see this happen *once*, but I'm pretty sure it didn't actually short out the connector. So the FW 400 connector is about as stupidly designed as the CD slot, which has actually allowed somebody to stick two CDs in (only seen it happen once to my recollection, as well).

But since you obviously see this happen all the time, I will defer to your experience and acknowledge that, yes, the connector design is probably the bigger problem than the fact that the Firewire PHY could only short out because it wasn't actually fused according to spec on whole series of machines.

And I'll also let your claim stand that the re-designed connector for Firewire 800 had to do with this "problem" that people would stick it in the wrong way round, rather than wih the 9 pins required over the 6 that the FW 400 connector offers.

You win.

Okay?

(What the hell is going on here, anyway?)

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by analogika 

But since you obviously see this happen all the time, I will defer to your experience and acknowledge that, yes, the connector design is probably the bigger problem than the fact that the Firewire PHY could only short out because it wasn't actually fused according to spec on whole series of machines.

I never said either was a bigger problem than the other, simply that the connector issue is a well-documented problem with the FW400 standard. Your power surge problem is also a problem which I hadn't heard of before this discussion, but which nonetheless is documented when I Google for it. You're the one who's been trying to turn this into a pissing match between the two, for some reason I can't fathom.

And I'll also let your claim stand that the re-designed connector for Firewire 800 had to do with this "problem" that people would stick it in the wrong way round, rather than wih the 9 pins required over the 6 that the FW 400 connector offers.

It was one of the reasons, at least according to this page:

Originally Posted by http://www.wiebetech.com/whitepapers/firewireevolution.pdf

Preliminary performance results showed that FireWire 800 was significantly faster than
FireWire 400, but not double the speed. FireWire 800 required new cables and
connectors, but the redesigned connectors in FireWire 800 helped resolve some of the
issues that had plagued many FireWire 400 products and host ports.

(What the hell is going on here, anyway?)

Honestly? I have no idea. This just started out with my saying that the new connector for FW800 was

1) not really a problem, because you can easily hook a FW400 device up to it using a 9-pin to 6-pin cable,

2) you already have to get a 6-pin to 4-pin cable for DV anyway, so a 9-pin to 4-pin isn't any harder to use there, and

3) the redesigned connector was a good thing, because it made FW800 more reliable.

Do you disagree with any of those points? Because they're about as much as I really care about relative to the discussion over FireWire 800 and its connector.