As Mac users, we know and love the FireWire (or, if you prefer its true name, IEEE1394), but could it be going the way of SCSI and serial ports? Recent statistics compiled by In-Stat show that FireWire’s popularity may be dwindling, especially when compared to that of USB2.0. The peak for FireWire may come in 2008, with decline hitting the year after that.
While Apple has longed used both FireWire and USB (and, in more recent years, USB2.0), the company has moved away from the former, which it helped create. iPods used to be FireWire only, but with the fifth-generation, became USB-only, and while Apple’s also put newer, faster FireWire 800 ports on its professional level Macs, the market at large has been slow to adopt those standards. Even digital camcorders, once a stronghold for the standard, have begun eschewing it for other alternatives.
FireWire still offers some advantages over USB2.0, especially when it comes to sustainable throughput, but with USB2.0’s near ubiquitous availability, can it hold out?
I doubt it really helps but whenever I buy an external device I always look for one that supports FireWire, if it is appropriate. However, with almost everything supporting USB 2.0 as well I doubt that it effects the decision of the manufacturer to continue support for the interface.
One thing that pretty important for a portable Mac owner is that the FireWire interfaces help free the rather stingy complement of USB ports on a laptop. One of the reasons why I bought a 17" MacBook Pro was the additional USB port for FireWire devices are always welcome since otherwise I need a hub as well.
I like FireWire a lot and see a lot of advantages over USB. I always try to use FireWire when I can and I only buy hard drives which support it.
However, a few recent moves made me doubt whether FireWire has a real future.
As you mention, when they dropped FireWire from the iPods I was stunned. I actually had to use achingly slow USB 1 synching with my iPod Nano until I got a new MacBook Pro. It was rather surreal to have two Apple products and not have a first class connection between them.
The other thing is that I don't have FireWire 800 on my MacBook Pro. Again, it seems rather surreal to have a top of the line notebook and not have the latest FireWire standard. I understand they have since corrected this issue, but not for me.
However, I am very impressed that I can connect one FireWire hard drive to my MacBook with FireWire 400 and chain other hard drives to it with FireWire 800. I only get FireWire 400 speeds of course, but it gives me some use for all the FireWire 800 cables I have laying around.
FireWire is the only way to transfer MiniDV tapes to iMovie, and moving anything with USB2.0 seems a slow lesson in patience. I have a few USB hard drives and a FireWire 400 drive and while they seem to have the same transfer speed, I bought the FW so I could boot my MacBook. Which brings up my next point. If Apple does decide to sent FireWire packing, they better enable all current Macs to boot via USB2.0 or we'd have no way to back up or restore our computers.
I hope not. Last night I tested an external HDD that has both FW400 and USB 2.0.
The FW400 managed a read/write rate of 38MB/30MB per second, while USB2 managed just 14MB/s each way.
I have a powerbook that is 4 years old, it doesn't have USB2 ports on it so I don't even consider looking at usb drives. Another issue, that someone else brought up is the fact that you can daisy-chain the devices together which is perfect when your cheap and only have so many ports.
To wesg - the Intel Macs can already boot from USB drives.
FireWire won't be dying anytime soon...it's too well-established in professional circles. eSATA may overtake it for storage, but there's very few viable alternatives at this point for things such as outboard audio interfaces. USB already owns the consumer market, but the performance just isn't there for pro-level, high-throughput uses.
I use Firewire when I have a choice, espcially if sustained throughput is what I need.
It's sad to see that quality doesn't always win over marketing power. It reminds me of the BetaMax vs VHS war. Or think MS vs Apple back then.
It's a question of how the public sees the technology. Ask anyone on the street if they understand the difference between USB and Firewire and I'm sure 90% + don't.
USB2 hard drives cost much less than Firewire hard drives. And iPods are USB.
Another big difference I have found is in power. I got a 100GB external USB 2.5" drive, and my USB ports didn't provide enough power to spin the drive up. It had a special cable so I could plug into the second USB port for enough power. But, that's a bad solution on a MacBook with only two USB ports, on opposite sides of the system.
Moving the drive to a firewire enclosure allowed it to work great. It spun right up, and worked like a champ. I now have three different firewire drives.
So, the advantages I see are:
- Higher power (IEEE1394 spec calls for much higher power than USB spec).
- Better performance, lower system overhead.
- Devices can be daisy chained.
one would speculate USB devices are cheaper to manufacture and no significant marketing pushes have been given to the merits of firewire