Comments on: FireWire Dead?

By: C.George

C.George — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 20:01:59 +0000

Firewire is history!! USB 3.0 will squash any remaining hope of firewire ever having a chance for a transfer medium. And with SATA, it’s doubly so!

By: mickintosh

mickintosh — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:16:31 +0000

FireWire all the way,

For Pro Audio, Digital Media, storage etc….SPEED is the key

I have 22 external firewire drives conected to my computer with very few marginal problems, while with only a few USB devices connected to an USB HUB with tons of issues, devices combinations will render the experience with USB very unpleasant.

How many SATA or ATA can you put in your computer without using specific adaptors (PCI,PCI-X,PCI EXPRESS)

my .02 cents

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 24 May 2006 21:03:15 +0000

SATA is indeed fast. But it is a bulk-transfer block-oriented protocol designed for disk applications. Firewire still has a place in random-access, short-burst low power device interfacing and it is and remains superior to USB 2.0. When do think you’ll see a SATA-interfaced video or film camera? How about a scanner or printer? Never is my guess.

By: Jon Schilling

Jon Schilling — Wed, 24 May 2006 18:25:23 +0000

SATA II 3Gb/Sec. twice as fast as firewire without the conversion hassles of Firewire.

By: The Apple Blog » No Firewire 800 in MacBooks

The Apple Blog » No Firewire 800 in MacBooks — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 19:20:54 +0000

[...] that the new MacBook’s have no Firewire 800 in them. We’ve posed the question before about the possibility that firewire could be bowing out…could this be a major [...]

By: paul

paul — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 10:21:47 +0000

firewire protocol is used to capture DV, DVC PRO, DVCPRO 50 And DVC PRO HD.

No way firewire will disappear!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 22:40:00 +0000

Despite the strong evidence it would hurt consumers of Apple products, Apple’s liason with Intel is probably what started the rumor. It is no secret that Intel favors USB and has tried to use their market dominance in PCs to quash Firewire. In fact, Intel has successfully limited Fireware largely to the video and audio markets keeping it from the broad market acceptance that would have allowed for the scale economies needed to allow Fireware to compete with USB on price (USB chips are 1/10th the cost of Firewire chips). Knowing that desperation led Apple to the dangerous liason with Intel and knowing Intel’s monopolistic behavior and ‘hardball’ tactics, I have some concerns about how much leverage Intel might eventually wield in Apple hardware design. So while strong arguments have been made here regarding the importance of Fireware in Apple markets, a healthy does of skepticism is warranted regarding Apple policy on Firewire. Apple could easily quash these rumors with a press release–yet I have not seen one. Therefore I am not certain Fireware is healthy although I certainly hope it is. The move to Intel will change many things beyond just the ‘endian-ness’ of the architecture. Fasten your seat belts–it is going to be bumpy for a few years at least.

By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 11:45:21 +0000

Another major use of Firewire would be Digital Audio Recording. Not only are external HDD’s important for this (which could be Firewire or USB 2.0), but the outboard equipment, such as preamps etc. often connects via Firewire.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 23:46:58 +0000

It seems to me that it is all a lot of nonsense. If I am not mistaken, the rumor that started all this was that the new ibooks will drop firewire 400 — but that they will have firewire 800. That sound like an upgrade to me (and assuming there are converters around that allow backward compatibility, it is a total non-issue).

By: Justin Halsall

Justin Halsall — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:31:43 +0000

Firewire is still the #1 connection for external hard drives, no way apple is going to stop that!

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 01:10:59 +0000

Firewire is the choice of the newly formed HANA group (HD Audio/Video Network Alliance). LINK

By: Hollow Android

Hollow Android — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 21:19:22 +0000

Don’t forget professional audio. USB 2.0 audio devices exist, but are hard to come by while Firewire devices are everywhere. Actually, I only know of one USB 2.0 pro audio device.

By: Yeroc

Yeroc — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:07:48 +0000

There’s no technical reason that USB2 external drives can’t be made bootable on the Mac… It just requires firmware/BIOS support. Newer PCs support this… I suspect the new Intel-based Macs will start supporting booting from an external USB drive.

By: Rad Wagner

Rad Wagner — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:30:35 +0000

Portable, bootable external drives have been a powerful tool for Mac experts for years. You can load one with multiple partitions, known good systems, and utilities, boot a target machine from the external, quickly test a known good OS, do diagnostics, do data recovery, run utilities, etc. Apple should keep the bootable external drive feature, whatever peripheral system they use. This article from June 2005 says that USB is not bootable: http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/06/usbharddrives/index.php.

By: macphisto

macphisto — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:07:24 +0000

I agree. USB and USB 2 will never cut it for high bandwidth data transfer. It is here to stay.

By: vanni

vanni — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 16:04:27 +0000

Firewire is here to stay for all the reasons stated. Makes no sense to pull it from the new machines. Apple never tries to lowball their desktops/laptops.

But having said that I was/am miffed at the drop of the FW on the iPods. (hence why Ibought an “older” model in the summer rather than a new colour one).