fire wire vs. USB?

[OstiaMan]

Wepa!
I have learn a lot from all the folks here, and I wil like to say thanks!
But I stil have a lot of cuestions so:
-what exactly is a fire wire, is it like usb?
-is it for mac, pc, both?
-how much $$$?
-for hard drive recordin, would be better to use fire wire or usb?

thanks again!

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

Firewire LOOKS very similar to USB, but it is MUCH faster.

If you plan to use an external harddrive, I would ONLY use firewire. USB drives will be too slow, even though they are cheaper. You could use a USB drive to store things, but it would be too slow to play back a 12 track song in real time.

A firewire card should only be around $60US or so. You might be able to find them cheaper.

Take care,
Chris

 

[elevate]

Firewire LOOKS very similar to USB, but it is MUCH faster.

Only true if you are referring to USB 1.

Firewire is platform independent and you should be able to get a card for around $30. Firewire drives cost a bit more than USB drives, but I'm not really sure why - both are just IDE drives in a box. I know that Apple has a licensing scheme that charges for every Firewire device sold, but I believe this is being phased out, or drastically reduced at least.

Anyway, for hard drive recording, either Firewire or USB 2 should suffice.

 

[brzilian]

Even though USB 2.0 has a faster throughput on paper, Firewire will perform better due to the differences in the communication protocol.

Everybody also forgets that USB bandwidth is shared between ALL USB devices, so if you are using some other type of USB peripheral, you will not get the maximum bandwidth.

Both USB and Firewire technologies deliver lower performance at a higher price when compared to PCI. Unless you are working on a Laptop or have a huge bank account there is no easy way to justify using Firewire or USB for DAW work in my opinion.

 

[Eurythmic]

If you happen to have any use for a Sound Blaster Audigy, they have firewire ports. Creative calls the port an SB-1394 (or whatever the number is), but as far as I know, that's just because FireWire is a registered trademark. Not bad for $55 or so, if you can use the sound card.

 

[sessionselect]

check out www.pricewatch.com for some cheap firewire cards....i've seen them as low at 25 dollars, you might find em even lower. good luck