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    What what is firewire port good?

    Discussion in 'Accessories' started by silin, Jun 24, 2006.

  1. silin

    silin Newbie

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    I'm considering buying a laptop without a firewire port, but I have doubts whether it'll be essential in future. Now most of external devices can be connected through USB, is firewire the future? For what do you think it will be used?
     
    silin, Jun 24, 2006
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  2. mtrivs

    mtrivs Notebook Evangelist

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    Well, i have heard many things about firewire being faster than USB. I did some digging and found out that firewire is actually slower than USB 2.0. However, USB 2.0 has a slower transfer speeds over a long period of time than firewire. So firewire can maintain its speed longer while USB would not be as fast. For instance if you were using an external USB hard drive to copy a large amount of files over a long period of time and you only got 100MB/s transfer at a constant rate, you would get around 150MB/s if you were using firewire because it has the ability to withstand its speeds longer than USB would.

    Right now USB is more widely used and it will probably stay that way, however if you plan on using an external HD i would say go with firewire.

    Hope you understood what i was trying to say! :)
     
    mtrivs, Jun 24, 2006
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  3. swisstoni

    swisstoni Notebook Enthusiast NBR Reviewer

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    If you don't need to transfer video off a camcorder.... then I doubt you'll miss it much!

    Its no where near as widely used as USB, however it is quicker (in practice, not on paper).... for example I find the firewire connection to my iPod quicker than the USB! That said, to show how USB is more popular, Apple dropped the included firewire cable to opt with USB only and firewire as an option!
     
    swisstoni, Jun 24, 2006
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  4. Lil Mayz

    Lil Mayz Notebook Deity

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    well USB 2 is technically faster than firewire (I think). Firewire is being used less and less so I wouldn't worry about.

    If you buy a device in the future which only uses Firewire, then you can always buy an adaptor.
     
    Lil Mayz, Jun 25, 2006
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  5. TedJ

    TedJ Asus fan in a can!

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    As has been mentioned above, firewire beats usb2 hands down when it comes to sustained transfer speeds, even though USB2 has the higher theoretical peak bandwidth (480Mb/s vs. 400Mb/s). This will give an significant performance boost if using an external HDD.

    Even so, unless you plan on using a digital camcorder with your notebook I wouldn't say that firewire is essential. Definitely nice to have, though.
     
    TedJ, Jun 25, 2006
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  6. lixuelai

    lixuelai Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    It is definitely nice to have. It is a better technology than USB and allows some quite versatile functions since it doesnt require a chipset due to the peer-to-peer structure it has. If you will be using an external hard drive or downloading from a camcorder Firewire will be very useful. You can also use it to set up a quick ad-hoc network
     
    lixuelai, Jun 26, 2006
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