Can a laptop with USB 1.1 achieve higher data rates?

Hello,
a laptop has USB 1.1 and FireWire. I don't have a device to test the rate via FireWire. Can a PCMCIA card offer higher rates via FireWire and USB with this machine?
They closed relevant topics ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...59-firewire-usb-combo-pc-card-bad-choice.html and
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...s/57233-upgrade-help-please-firewire-usb.html), so I needed a new one.

 

FireWire is many times faster than USB 1.1.

Which machine?

 

USB 1.1 -> ~0.75 Mbyte/s, pretty much useless for anything besides keyboard and/or mouse.

Firewire 400 (most likely what you have) -> max ~40 Mbyte/s (faster than USB 2.0 with its ~30 Mbytes/s top), does not need device drivers to work so it's nice to use

PCMCIA interface (you probably got type 2) -> max ~80 Mbyte/s


So your best bet would be to use the Firewire anytime you can. Or you can buy PCMCIA USB 2.0 card to let you have USB 2.0 ports that you can use at their full speed. If you get PCMCIA card with USB 3.0 then you'll be limited to the speed of the PCMCIA itself.

things to check: make sure that you have FireWire 400 and not 200 or 100, as you may be limited to 1/2 or 1/4 the speed in that case.

 

Thanks for all replies!
The machine is an exotic brand, Terra, probably custom-built, with a titanium-clad case. Built with USB1 because perhaps USB2 was not around yet. Does this have no relevance to what PCMCIA Type II or FireWire can support? It doesn't say if this is version 400, just a 4-pin IEEE 1394. Even if it's an earlier version, a half or a fourth of the FireWire rate would still be an improvement over USB1. Too bad, FireWire has a limited use. I couldn't find a FireWire-USB adapter.

 

You aren't going to find adapters for Firewire ... it never had significant marketshare (with the exception of some professional audio uses way back when). USB1.1 tops out at 1.5MB/s, USB2.0 at no more than 60MB/s, and PCMCIA runs at up to 133MB/s.

If you need more bandwidth for an external hard drive I'd hunt down a (more universal for other applications) PCMCIA/USB2 adapter or a (faster for hard drives only) PCMCIA/eSATA adapter. A USB2 adapter would run at up to 60MB/s and the eSATA adapter would achieve very close to 133MB/s if your hard drives run that fast.

 

while those may be the interface maximum speeds of each standard, you're not going to get anywhere near that in real life usage. There are overheads and bi-directional communication taking place so what is left as usable is what I posted above. Note however that firewire 400 runs faster than USB 2.0 .

PCMCIA eSATA 2 is nice to have for external hard drives, and will top out the PCMCIA interface itself (much like PCMCIA USB 3.0 card), and will be faster than Firewire 400 as there are external hard drives for sale that can use firewire port, but not as many. I'd get either that, or a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card, or both

EDIT: also nice to know is that firewire can supply about 3 times more power to external devices than USB 2.0, so if an external HDD may need to be connected into two USB 2.0 ports due to power requirements, it may run just fine on one firewire port. An eSata card would not provide power so that is to be taken either from USB ports or from external adapter.

 

Regardless of the practical bandwidths (versus the theoretical you are right Miro) I'd still say USB and eSATA are more useful in the long run. Not every computer, and very few notebooks, now have Firewire.

If you are using a 4-pin Firewire interface (found on most notebooks if they even have a firewire connector), or a 4-pin or 6-pin Firewire interface from a PC card adapter, you are not going to get any power out of the interface. Same thing if you are using a PC card for USB ... you'll need to use one or two USB1.1 ports (or an external adapter) to power an external hard drive.

 

yes you're correct, the 4-pin firewire port does not provide power, I just looked it up. I guess my friend is using the 6-pin connector from his desktop to connect to his external HDD. Thanks for the note.

I dont use firewire ports, even though I got a 4-pin one built in my wide T61, and I got an old PCMCIA firewire card with two 6-pin ports. Looks like the interface is dieing out, thought it is a pretty decent one that just lost support. I do use eSata Expresscard quite a lot.

 

Thanks again for the explanations! What are the possibilities to connect a bare 3.5 HDD to USB or eSATA?
1) A PCMCIA-to-SATA adapter without external power can likely only support a 2.5 HDD. More power for a 3.5 HDD can presumably only come from an external case or an adapter, into which you can only plug a whole HDD. Or are there mains-to-SATA power adapters or USB-to-SATA power cables?
2) Will a PCMCIA-to-eSATA only support an appropriately equipped case, or are there SATA-to-eSATA cables?

 

1) eSATA doesn't provide power, there is a connector called eSATAp that can power a 2.5" drive, but the connector cables and enclosures are pretty rare. For a 3.5" drive, you'll need an external power source.

eSATA is a SATA conenctor in another shape, so if you can hunt down an eSATA to SATA cable it will plug directly into a bare drive, but it won't provide power either.

 

Don't mean to get off course here but one of the coolest ports I've seen lately was a USB 3.0 eSATAp port, or simply USB 3.0+eSATA. It was on a Dell Latitude I think. My 6475b has USB 2.0+eSATA, 4-pin FireWire, and a 2nd Gen ExpressCard slot. I love that about business notebooks. I also use ExpressCard a lot, mostly for added USB 3.0 ports but also for eSATA if i really needed to. eSATA also doesn't require drivers and an eSATAp cable is not too expensive but that are rather stiff and thick (due to all the wiring and shielding).

I used to own an HP Pavilion dv6 with 4-pin FireWire too and never used it once. I haven't used in on my 6475b either. Its a shame really as I like to get the most out of my "tools" and use all it has to offer.

Ok, sorry I'll let you guys get back on topic.

 

tijo and David, thanks for the input!
Turns out, I already have all you need to power a drive without a case: a power adapter I used for IDE drives and an IDE-to-SATA power cable.
1) What rate can be achieved with a PCMCIA-to-SATA adapter?
2) Can the rate with a PCMCIA-to-eSATA adapter be as high as 133MB/s as mentioned above?
3) What can you get with USB3?

 

I have no experience with PCMCIA, I've only used it's younger brother: expresscard. I'd expect that thee is going to be a tad of overhead with the adapter, but not much, SATA and PCMCIA are both low overhead, low latency interfaces. If the eSATA controller on the card is any good, I'd say 100 MB/s is feasible, maybe more, but I prefer being conservative. If the controller isn't that great, you could see speeds in the 80 MB/s range.

USB3.0 is faster than any HDD currently available on the market and faster than what PCMCIA too.

@davidricardo86 if you want to see a crazy amount of ports, look no further than the M6700, it has pretty much everything aside from thunderbolt.

 

@tijo
Nice! I love Dell business notebooks, they never fail to impress me. Their designs and build are top notch. My bro brought home a Dell workstation like that m6700 one time and it was a beast, both in terms of size and performance. He's a drafter and works with CAD.

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