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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
I'm cleaning up the storage bins.
I found a few firewire 400 hard drive enclosures. My primary PC has firewire 400 and USB 3.0 ports...no contest. But the other machines have USB 2.0 and firewire 400 ports. I did a bunch of googling, but most of the data presented pertains to Apple Machines. It's suggested that, for Apple, the sustained transfer rate of firewire 400 exceeds USB 2.0 by a significant margin. What's the real-world throughput of firewire 400 vs USB 2.0 external hard drive on a windows 7 PC (say 2.6GHz. dual core Intel 7200 RPM drives) when copying files? I'd just test it, but I can't find the cable. If I can't expect significant increase in throughput, I'll quit looking and put the enclosures in the recycle pile. There's also the question of power available from a firewire 400 port. Specs vary considerably by device. My expectation is that I could use a firewire powered 2.5" hard drive for storing backups and get more speed than a USB 2.0 thumb drive. 2.5" USB hard drives powered by USB have been iffy with insufficient available current to start the drive. Firewire should fix that??? |
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#2
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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
mike wrote:
I'm cleaning up the storage bins. I found a few firewire 400 hard drive enclosures. My primary PC has firewire 400 and USB 3.0 ports...no contest. But the other machines have USB 2.0 and firewire 400 ports. I did a bunch of googling, but most of the data presented pertains to Apple Machines. It's suggested that, for Apple, the sustained transfer rate of firewire 400 exceeds USB 2.0 by a significant margin. What's the real-world throughput of firewire 400 vs USB 2.0 external hard drive on a windows 7 PC (say 2.6GHz. dual core Intel 7200 RPM drives) when copying files? I'd just test it, but I can't find the cable. If I can't expect significant increase in throughput, I'll quit looking and put the enclosures in the recycle pile. There's also the question of power available from a firewire 400 port. Specs vary considerably by device. My expectation is that I could use a firewire powered 2.5" hard drive for storing backups and get more speed than a USB 2.0 thumb drive. 2.5" USB hard drives powered by USB have been iffy with insufficient available current to start the drive. Firewire should fix that??? Firewire performance can be a function of the controller chip. These are my numbers for a pair of Firewire 400 enclosures. Host ----------- Firewire 400 30MB/sec The second configuration is daisy-chain mode. The enclosures happen to have two Firewire 6 pin connectors. The second connector is via controller chip "regeneration". The performance is bus-limited by the passthru transfer of the chip in the first enclosure. Host ----------- Firewire 400 ----------- Firewire 400 20MB/sec So if they were supposed to do 50MB/sec, nobody told my enclosures that. The devices were never connected in daisy chain mode again, after the initial test was carried out. I would hook them up directly, or not at all. ******* The bus power is wired-OR. The "strongest" device sources the power. Apple computers had an extra output at 25V, for powering the monitor right from the computer. This mean the monitor did not need its own power supply (also a means of lock-in). The other benefit of the 25V output option on the power supply, is it could be used as a bus power source for Firewire. The total watts available, is bus_voltage times max_allowed_current. On IBM PC compatible Firewire ports, 12VDC is a typical choice for bus power. As that is the most-positive voltage available. It means a bus-powered enclosure, has a lower limit on power caused by the lower bus voltage used. A Firewire enclosure "always has to deal with Apple", so power conversion from VBUS to other voltages, is required. My Firewire enclosures were AC powered, and the power supply was inside the enclosure. This meant fewer wall warts, but also meant that the device was not looking for bus power to run (didn't matter what it was connected to, and would work with a 4 pin Firewire computer). There was sufficient power (40W footprint), that the internal power supply did the work. There were a few "phantom power" issues, with the LED on the front of the unit remaining lit, even when the AC power on the enclosure was switched off. That means the bus power has "leaked" into the enclosure when it shouldn't have, and caused the front LED to be dimly lit. I don't see a strong reason for using that stuff now, and I'd just retire it. At times, it can be just as goofy as USB2, with no obvious benefit. A USB3 peripheral connected to a USB2 port, can do on the order of 35MB/sec, which is good enough if that's all you've got. I wouldn't waste the extra time digging out my Firewire crap, to get roughly the same mediocre performance. My USB3 enclosures have wall warts, so I never have to worry about power. And the enclosures were relatively cheap. I run them with the aluminum cover off, because they have no cooling to speak of. These were an impulse buy at my local computer store, without researching them. NST-366S3-SV $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817392076 I seem to remember there were some Macintosh web sites with benchmarks for Firewire 400, so if you want numbers, they'll still be sitting there. It's just my enclosures that apparently weren't the best. Paul |
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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
On 12/17/2015 2:47 PM, Paul wrote:
mike wrote: I'm cleaning up the storage bins. I found a few firewire 400 hard drive enclosures. My primary PC has firewire 400 and USB 3.0 ports...no contest. But the other machines have USB 2.0 and firewire 400 ports. I did a bunch of googling, but most of the data presented pertains to Apple Machines. It's suggested that, for Apple, the sustained transfer rate of firewire 400 exceeds USB 2.0 by a significant margin. What's the real-world throughput of firewire 400 vs USB 2.0 external hard drive on a windows 7 PC (say 2.6GHz. dual core Intel 7200 RPM drives) when copying files? I'd just test it, but I can't find the cable. If I can't expect significant increase in throughput, I'll quit looking and put the enclosures in the recycle pile. There's also the question of power available from a firewire 400 port. Specs vary considerably by device. My expectation is that I could use a firewire powered 2.5" hard drive for storing backups and get more speed than a USB 2.0 thumb drive. 2.5" USB hard drives powered by USB have been iffy with insufficient available current to start the drive. Firewire should fix that??? Firewire performance can be a function of the controller chip. These are my numbers for a pair of Firewire 400 enclosures. Host ----------- Firewire 400 30MB/sec The second configuration is daisy-chain mode. The enclosures happen to have two Firewire 6 pin connectors. The second connector is via controller chip "regeneration". The performance is bus-limited by the passthru transfer of the chip in the first enclosure. Host ----------- Firewire 400 ----------- Firewire 400 20MB/sec So if they were supposed to do 50MB/sec, nobody told my enclosures that. The devices were never connected in daisy chain mode again, after the initial test was carried out. I would hook them up directly, or not at all. ******* The bus power is wired-OR. The "strongest" device sources the power. Apple computers had an extra output at 25V, for powering the monitor right from the computer. This mean the monitor did not need its own power supply (also a means of lock-in). The other benefit of the 25V output option on the power supply, is it could be used as a bus power source for Firewire. The total watts available, is bus_voltage times max_allowed_current. On IBM PC compatible Firewire ports, 12VDC is a typical choice for bus power. As that is the most-positive voltage available. It means a bus-powered enclosure, has a lower limit on power caused by the lower bus voltage used. A Firewire enclosure "always has to deal with Apple", so power conversion from VBUS to other voltages, is required. My Firewire enclosures were AC powered, and the power supply was inside the enclosure. This meant fewer wall warts, but also meant that the device was not looking for bus power to run (didn't matter what it was connected to, and would work with a 4 pin Firewire computer). There was sufficient power (40W footprint), that the internal power supply did the work. There were a few "phantom power" issues, with the LED on the front of the unit remaining lit, even when the AC power on the enclosure was switched off. That means the bus power has "leaked" into the enclosure when it shouldn't have, and caused the front LED to be dimly lit. I don't see a strong reason for using that stuff now, and I'd just retire it. At times, it can be just as goofy as USB2, with no obvious benefit. A USB3 peripheral connected to a USB2 port, can do on the order of 35MB/sec, which is good enough if that's all you've got. I wouldn't waste the extra time digging out my Firewire crap, to get roughly the same mediocre performance. My USB3 enclosures have wall warts, so I never have to worry about power. And the enclosures were relatively cheap. I run them with the aluminum cover off, because they have no cooling to speak of. These were an impulse buy at my local computer store, without researching them. NST-366S3-SV $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817392076 I seem to remember there were some Macintosh web sites with benchmarks for Firewire 400, so if you want numbers, they'll still be sitting there. It's just my enclosures that apparently weren't the best. Paul Thanks for the input. I read many of the Apple reports. Some said 50% faster than USB2. Others said about the same in real world. Pick any number and you can find a review that says that number. Sigh. I liked that the firewire enclosures had power switches. Since I'd use it for archival storage it would be off most of the time. I've got a bunch of AC power switches at the wall warts for the USB drives. PITA. I think I'll take your advice and retire them. |
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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
mike wrote:
Thanks for the input. I read many of the Apple reports. Some said 50% faster than USB2. Others said about the same in real world. Pick any number and you can find a review that says that number. Sigh. I liked that the firewire enclosures had power switches. Since I'd use it for archival storage it would be off most of the time. I've got a bunch of AC power switches at the wall warts for the USB drives. PITA. I think I'll take your advice and retire them. My most modern Mac, has USB1.1 and Firewire 400. And it has GbE. For serious work, I do stuff over the network. I've done file transfer over the USB1.1 port, but even small transfers (a few Photoshop files), might take a fraction of an hour. If I wanted, I could fit a USB2 card into the machine - and Apple could easily have done that too, except they wanted to emphasize Firewire by "making USB suck". That's why it doesn't have a NEC USB2 chip. They could easily have fitted USB2 at the time. I have other hardware for my retired Mac family. PTP 250 had two Adaptec SCSI cards, and external cabling to SCSI enclosures. Two disks used to sit on top of the computer case. The inside of the computer was full of (low density) disk drives. Mac G4 has two SCSI cards too, a narrow card for the scanner and a wide card for the enclosures (so enclosures could be moved between machines). The G4 also got an IDE card of some sort, ACard brand. But I don't remember exactly why I needed that. So I actually had plenty of ways to connect stuff, and owned more cards than slots on the Macs. Even my original Quadra had excess hardware - it got the must expensive video card I've ever owned :-) Silly, really. But that's the Apple ecosystem for you. Stuff like that just seems to happen. Paul |
#5
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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
On Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:47:22 -0800, mike wrote:
I liked that the firewire enclosures had power switches. Since I'd use it for archival storage it would be off most of the time. I've got a bunch of AC power switches at the wall warts for the USB drives. PITA. I have a vision of a medium-sized plywood box with a set of about 10 outlets mounted along one face and a corresponding set of switches mounted along the adjoining face, allowing you to turn individual outlets on or off at will. Am I close? :-) -- Char Jackson |
#6
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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
On 12/18/2015 6:48 AM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:47:22 -0800, mike wrote: I liked that the firewire enclosures had power switches. Since I'd use it for archival storage it would be off most of the time. I've got a bunch of AC power switches at the wall warts for the USB drives. PITA. I have a vision of a medium-sized plywood box with a set of about 10 outlets mounted along one face and a corresponding set of switches mounted along the adjoining face, allowing you to turn individual outlets on or off at will. Am I close? :-) ONlY TEN??? I've got 36 and counting, although not all are individually switched and several are occluded by wall-warts. It started as one of the wide, thin UPS boxes with switched outlets and the guts removed sitting under the printer. It's devolved to a tree-structure of power strips with individual outlet switches plugged into those. My Anthro workstation looks like a combination of spider web and rat's nest. I ordered one of these without thinking it thru. http://www.outletpc.com/al2647-rosew...FUZcfgodTNoJNA Sockets are too close together and rotated wrong direction for most of the wall-warts. And the warts cover the switches. Bummer. What I'd like is a 6-foot long strip with switched outlets every 4 inches or so. That would dramatically decrease the rat's nest. I considered one big honkin' 12V/5V supply to replace a bunch of wall warts, but, I don't like the idea of a single point failure destroying everything. |
#7
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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
On Fri, 18 Dec 2015 10:09:38 -0800, mike wrote:
On 12/18/2015 6:48 AM, Char Jackson wrote: On Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:47:22 -0800, mike wrote: I liked that the firewire enclosures had power switches. Since I'd use it for archival storage it would be off most of the time. I've got a bunch of AC power switches at the wall warts for the USB drives. PITA. I have a vision of a medium-sized plywood box with a set of about 10 outlets mounted along one face and a corresponding set of switches mounted along the adjoining face, allowing you to turn individual outlets on or off at will. Am I close? :-) ONlY TEN??? I've got 36 and counting, although not all are individually switched and several are occluded by wall-warts. It started as one of the wide, thin UPS boxes with switched outlets and the guts removed sitting under the printer. It's devolved to a tree-structure of power strips with individual outlet switches plugged into those. My Anthro workstation looks like a combination of spider web and rat's nest. I ordered one of these without thinking it thru. http://www.outletpc.com/al2647-rosew...FUZcfgodTNoJNA Sockets are too close together and rotated wrong direction for most of the wall-warts. And the warts cover the switches. Bummer. What I'd like is a 6-foot long strip with switched outlets every 4 inches or so. That would dramatically decrease the rat's nest. I considered one big honkin' 12V/5V supply to replace a bunch of wall warts, but, I don't like the idea of a single point failure destroying everything. I use a bunch of those little 6" extension cords that are made just for getting the wall warts away from the outlets. -- Char Jackson |
#8
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USB 2.0 or Firewire 400??
On 12/20/2015 02:11 AM, Char Jackson wrote:
[snip] I use a bunch of those little 6" extension cords that are made just for getting the wall warts away from the outlets. I have a few. Occasionally, I find one useful. They're really expensive for what you get. A normal 6-foot cord works too, and you can plug in 2 (or is some cases 3) wall warts. Anything with properly-spaced and oriented outlets would either be a big waste of space, or custom-built for what you have now, and not adaptable to what you have next year. -- 5 days until the winter celebration (Friday December 25, 2015 12:00:00 AM for 1 day). Mark Lloyd http://notstupid.us/ "In fact, when you get right down to it, almost every explanation Man came up with for *anything* until about 1926 was stupid." [Dave Barry] |
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