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IP over Firewire Updated
foniksonik writes "Apple released an update to its IP over FireWire software. 'Now the IP over FireWire Preview Release adds support for using the Internet Protocol - commonly known as TCP/IP - over FireWire. ... Using the existing Network Preferences Pane, users can add FireWire as their IP network node to connect and communicate between two machines. ... In all cases, Rendezvous can be used if desired for configuration, name resolution, and discovery.'" Now it is time for YA debate on FireWire vs. Ethernet. Let the festivities commence!
It remains to be seen whether FireWire will hit 3.2GBps before 10GBps Ethernet becomes affordable. (Even if it does, I'd really expect people to use it more for SANs and NAS than for ordinary networks.)
Firewire cable to connect the two machines: $little
Hub or switch that can support the same speeds: $fuckloads
Ethernet NICs on Apple computers are self-crossing...
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Not true. In practice (yes, we have a Gig E network) you RARELY get over 300Mbps from a Gig E link - FW 400 can hit these rates just fine.
That was classic intercourse!
I've been toying around with the new IP over Firewire and noticed something quite interesting. I've got my iBook connected to the second fw400 port on my DP1.25ghz fw800 MDD powermac. The first fw400 port on my powermac is used by my 30gig iPod. I installed the new release on both machines and when I had rebooted my iPod showed up on both my iBook and my Powermac. I don't know if this was Rendezvous, which I know is now implemented on the new release. I can see how this could be quite useful in a setting where an external Firewire device, say a DVD burner or HardDisk, could be easily shared between two computers.
"Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity."
Ok, so it's not as fast as gigE but it makes one hell of a redundant system to daisychain round a few nodes. As a previous poster said, it will also take some bottleneck strain. There's the possibility of using it for LAN parties without half the hardware cost (if indeed it can be daisychained - and I can't see why not)The quicker this gets fully implemented, the better.
The only weird thing I can't figure out yet is how it mounts that other disk. All files are owned by the admin owner and you can't chown anything on the target macs disk, therefore if I backup /Users to it with "rsync -a", it requires later booting up the destination mac and "chown -R" each user's home dir. There must be a mount option somewhere to deal with this...
IP Over Firewire has been really useful for me in a couple of situations -- most notably when I've needed to run backups of my main Macs. For day-to-day use, I stick to 10/100 though -- it's cheaper to implement, and I can crimp my own cables on a whim.
I've got a Shuttle barebones based Wintel system with built-in firewire and a pair of massive drives that I use for a rendering station/backup server -- and let me tell you -- backing up 130 gigs worth of DV footage/uncompressed TIFFs (insert pr0n joke here) over Firewire is one hell of a lot quicker than waiting for the same over 100mbps Ethernet. XP is slightly flaky when it comes to IP over firewire (no, i *don't* want those connections bridged!) but once you get it running it's a little more stable than your average house of cards.
I know a lot of photographers who swear by Target Disk mode as well -- they carry their powerbooks as preview stations and Big Honkin Memory Cards (using Firewire-connected pro cameras) and once they get back to their main machine to retouch, they just go into target mode and stuff dumps *fast*. Now if only I could get a kodak camera back to interface with my iPod......
All things being equal, I've been tempted to convert everything I've got over to firewire from the stock ethernet jacks -- but I honestly have better uses for a firewire port most of the time (DVD-R, DVcam, DVDeck, DV-to-component box, iPod), and I really prefer to rely on my router for connection sharing instead of the Mac.
From my experience with a previous release of Apple IP over Firewire, it seems slow, and it has very high overhead. A dual 800MHz G4 host which can transmit at well over 1.4 Gb/sec (using ethernet-over-Myrinet) maxes its CPU out at
200Mb/sec, or less with IP over Firewire. GigE performance maxes out at something over 700Mb/sec. Both tests were run against a 15" 867MHz Powerbook directly connected (no switches in either case)
As other posters pointed out, GigE switch hardware is much more expensive. But if you're just interested in point-to-point data transfers without using target mode, GigE is much faster.