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FireWire Spec to Boost Data Speeds to 3.2 Gbps

Posted by Zonk on from the lots-of-mp3s-really-fast dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "A new set of data transfer specs may reach new Firewire speed records. The new transfer version is called S3200 and builds on the earlier specification approved by the IEEE.' The technology will be able to use existing FireWire 800 cables and connectors while delivering a major boost in performance. The new spec also will let users interconnect various home-networking appliances via coax cable, linking HDTVs with set-top boxes, TVs, and computers in various rooms around a home or office. The new release enables the transmission of FireWire data over distances of more than 100 meters. Home entertainment centers are likely to be an early application.'"

18 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. I think Apple.... by alta · · Score: 3, Insightful

    will be the earliest application. Remember when this was like e1394, or if you're sony i.Link. Those names never got any momentum, and they didn't push it. Heck, sony isn't too good at pushing standards anyway. Beta? Mini Disk? Memory Stick? Blueray has a chance.

    Anyway, when apple calls it firewire2, then it'll get adopted.

    --
    Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
    1. Re:I think Apple.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Remember when this was like e1394, or if you're sony i.Link.

      You're thinking of IEEE1394, which it still is. And Sony's iLink implementation was the unpowered 4-pin version of it.

    2. Re:I think Apple.... by kithrup · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've got a drive with USB 2.0, FW400, FW800, and eSATA connectors. (It's a LaCie "quadra," if anyone is interested.)

      In terms of performance, that's pretty much the order, there -- USB is slow, despite it's claims of 480mbits/sec. FW800 and eSATA get me about 85MBytes/sec reading from the raw device; writing appears to be a bit slower, but that was going through the filesystem, so I'll do another test on a drive I don't mind wiping out :).

      As with SCSI, the big advantage the faster FW speeds have is that you can have multiple devices chained. So you can have six or seven disks on the chain, and not worry about running out of bandwidth. eSATA doesn't give me that advantage.

  2. stupid tags by farkus888 · · Score: 5, Funny

    what moron tagged a story about fire"wire" "wireless"?

    --
    thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
  3. I would just like a single standard... by explosivejared · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why USB and Firewire need to exist. Maybe I'm naive and don't see where there are ad hoc benefits to both. I would like to see a unified standard. I have both on my machine, so there is no compatibility annoyance. I don't see competition benefiting either one really.

    --
    I got a catholic block.
    1. Re:I would just like a single standard... by speculatrix · · Score: 5, Informative

      very crudely, firewire was specifically designed to be for high speed streaming data - like video - it's ideal for a hard drive moving large chunks of data, and would be no use for mice and keyboards. USB was originally designed for low bandwidth low latency peripherals; it allocates data bandwidth in inverse proportion to demand, so e.g. mass storage gets whatever's left after mice/keyboards and tablets have had their share.

    2. Re:I would just like a single standard... by zsouthboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      USB is computer-centric - created by Intel. Somewhere in the chain, a computer needs to be connected.

      Whereas 1394 is device-centric - designed for tranferring video, audio, data, etc. between "dumb" devices.

      The PC world "snubbed" 1394 (not completely) because of the $.25(or something equally absurd) royalty to Apple; Intel pushed USB.

      1394 is more expensive to implement in hardware (which should be obvious - it's for dumb devices!), while USB is cheap - the CPU does most of the work.

    3. Re:I would just like a single standard... by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 5, Informative

      Blame Intel then. Firewire was developed in 1990, released into PCs

      Here are the technical specs for Firewire from Wiki:
      FireWire can connect up to 63 peripherals in a tree topology (as opposed to Parallel SCSI's Electrical bus topology). It allows peer-to-peer device communication -- such as communication between a scanner and a printer -- to take place without using system memory or the CPU. FireWire also supports multiple hosts per bus. It is designed to support Plug-and-play and hot swapping. Its six-wire cable is more flexible than most Parallel SCSI cables and can supply up to 45 watts of power per port at up to 30 volts, allowing moderate-consumption devices to operate without a separate power supply. (As noted earlier, the Sony-branded i.LINK usually omits the power wiring of the cables and uses a 4-pin connector. Devices have to get their power by other means.)

      FireWire devices implement the ISO/IEC 13213 "configuration ROM" model for device configuration and identification, to provide plug-and-play capability. All FireWire devices are identified by an IEEE EUI-64 unique identifier (an extension of the 48-bit Ethernet MAC address format) in addition to well-known codes indicating the type of device and the protocols it supports.

      From the USB wiki:
      USB was originally seen as a complement to FireWire (IEEE 1394), which was designed as a high-speed serial bus which could efficiently interconnect peripherals such as hard disks, audio interfaces, and video equipment. USB originally operated at a far lower data rate and used much simpler hardware, and was suitable for small peripherals such as keyboards and mice.

      The most significant technical differences between FireWire and USB include the following:

              * USB networks use a tiered-star topology, while FireWire networks use a repeater-based topology.
              * USB uses a "speak-when-spoken-to" protocol; peripherals cannot communicate with the host unless the host specifically requests communication. A FireWire device can communicate with any other node at any time, subject to network conditions.
              * A USB network relies on a single host at the top of the tree to control the network. In a FireWire network, any capable node can control the network.

      These and other differences reflect the differing design goals of the two buses: USB was designed for simplicity and low cost, while FireWire was designed for high performance, particularly in time-sensitive applications such as audio and video. Although similar in theoretical maximum transfer rate, in real-world use, especially for high-bandwidth use such as external hard-drives, FireWire 400 generally has a significantly higher throughput than USB 2.0 Hi-Speed.[13][14][15][16] The newer FireWire 800 standard is twice as fast as FireWire 400 and outperforms USB 2.0 Hi-Speed both theoretically and practically.[17]

      There are technical reasons why USB 2.0 devices cannot efficiently utilize all the available bandwidth. USB communication is based on polling the devices; there is no pipelining of commands. After sending a command to a device, the USB host must wait for a reply to the command before a new command can be sent to the same device. The bandwidth of a USB bus is divided by all devices connected to the bus. The USB host cannot send commands to one device while waiting for reply from another device. Since all communication is initiated by a USB host, the host must periodically poll all those USB devices that can provide data at unexpected intervals, such as network cards and keyboards. This consumes unnecessary resources when the devices are idle. These issues are being addressed by the forthcoming USB 3.0 specification, although it is not clear whether USB 3.0 is going to match FireWire in bandwidth efficiency.

      --

      GPL Deconstructed
    4. Re:I would just like a single standard... by vux984 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      USB is slow and cheap.
      Firewire is fast and cost more.

      So they both existed. One was good for mice and keyboards, one was good for digital video and external hard drives.

      Then USB2 came out which is almost as fast as firewire, and the lines got blurry.

      Firewire was still considerably better as a technology. It does a lot of its own processing while usb2 offloads a lot of processing to the host system... so firewire drives don't tie up the CPU the way a USB2 one does. Firewire supports more simultaneous devices, and seems to have fewer issues with power as well. It also doesn't have stupid rectangular connectors that users will try upside down 50% of the time.

      Then Firewire 3200 was announced and santify was restored.

      USB2 is slow and cheap.
      "Firewire-3200" is fast and costs more.

      Do we 'need' usb? no. We could get by on just firewire. But usb is cheaper and a penny saved is a penny earned.

    5. Re:I would just like a single standard... by kithrup · · Score: 5, Informative

      One of the big advantages FW has over USB is that a device can request, and get, a specific bandwidth. So, for example, a video camera can say, "I need to have 19mbits/sec." And if it can, then it'll get that -- and nothing on the bus will be able to take it away until it releases it.

      When doing real-time applications such as video, this is pretty important.

    6. Re:I would just like a single standard... by MBCook · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've seen the same thing on my MacBook Pro with my external drive. FireWire 400 is maybe 25% faster, FireWire 800 is 50% faster (same drive). The big thing is CPU utilization though. Maxing out the disk on FireWire 800 is no problem. Very little CPU usage (maybe under 10%, this is based on a little graph, I've never looked at hard numbers). Running it over USB has a very noticeable CPU impact.

      FireWire is great at what it was made for. USB is very good at what it was designed for (mice, keyboards) and weak at things it was forced to do (hard drives).

      It's all Intel's fault. They put USB on everything, but didn't put FireWire on anything until very recently, if they even have by now. So USB "won".

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    7. Re:I would just like a single standard... by InvalidError · · Score: 5, Informative

      FW400 may be "only" 400Mbps but it is double-simplex 400Mbps - 800Mbps aggregate. USB2 may be "faster" at 480Mbps but it is half-duplex with 10% bandwidth reserved for host commands and more dead-time inserted between TX and RX packets while host and target devices' transceivers switch directions, wasting several microseconds each time.

      The highest copy speed I have ever reached on FW400 is 32MB/s - limited by the ATA33-FW400 bridge chip (Oxford 911) while the highest speed I have ever seen with any combination of my USB2/480 external HDD boxes and PCs is 24MB/s with 18MB/s being more typical. Under the best circumstances, USB barely matches the SLOWEST speeds I take for granted on FW400. If I string two of my FireWire drives together and move data between the two boxes, I still get the same 24-30MB/s I am used to but if I try to do the same with USB2 and a hub, USB2 crawls at 8-10MB/s. In this scenario, FireWire is as much as 3X as fast as USB2.

      With eSATA for external storage, USB3 (late 2008) for all sorts of high-bandwidth (4.8Gbps) devices and GbE for mainstream networking, FW3200 will become irrelevant soon enough: USB3 is supposed to be 4.8Gbps double-simplex fiber, blowing away FW3200 on raw speed and finally getting rid of USB1/2's half-duplex overhead.

  4. Yeah -- so what? by ThousandStars · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If a protocol is released in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

    I've read a variety of posts about the problems with FireWire (see here and here from what I found on Google), and the big problem is that FireWire didn't become a de facto standard seven or eight years ago when it was really needed. These days, it seems like few computers other than Macs ship with FireWire standard, and I've never seen a laptop in the wild outside of Macs with a six-pin FireWire 400 port, let alone 800.

    I've heard this is chiefly due to Apple's initial intransigence regarding licensing; they demanded $1 per computer to use the "FireWire" name, making other device makers really angry. Considering how slim hardware margins are, no one was going to go for it. FireWire 400 is still technically superior to USB 2.0 in many ways, even today, but it's never reached the market penetration it needs, and now USB 2.0 is "good enough" for most purposes.

    I use a Mac and so do many family members, and I've long counseled them to get only FireWire drives for backups. When Leopard came out, some were shopping for drives, and I found that I could not find FW400/USB 2 drives for as little as plain USB 2.0 drives. In other words, the FireWire premium for HDs appears to be at least $30. Not a good sign for market penetration.

    Now FW 3200 is being discussed when FW 800 already seems dead on arrival in consumer land, and only supported to the limited extent it is by Apple. Not making it backwards compatible with FW400 was an idiotic decision that ensured whatever chance it had in the market was gone. In the meantime, eSATA and the like have come along and perhaps obviated the need for many FireWire applications altogether.

  5. Re:Too Little Too Late by ChronoReverse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That wasn't the real issue with USB 2.0 anyways. The real issue is that USB 2.0 was suited for burst data transfers (where you got the theoretical speed), but simply can't do streaming at the maximum speed due to the enormous overhead of the protocol.


    With that said, CPU utilization will indeed be a HUGE concern since USB 3.0 is so fast. The relatively minor CPU overhead of USB 2.0 will give way to CPU stalling overhead unless USB 3.0 addresses it. There's not enough information to make a statement about this, so we'll have to wait for more information to be released.

  6. Does it matter? by jeramybsmith · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Firewire was mostly used for DV cameras and external hard drives. These devices worked pretty well under XP, Linux, and OSX. However, the 800 pound gorilla has turned on firewire.

    Vista's firewire implementation is the pits. I think TI spec controllers basically didn't work at all even though the cards were recognized (maybe it was the other spec). MS recently released a hotfix that remedied some of the problems, but the controllers were then only working up to 100mbps and not 400 even with registry settings set to 400. Getting 12MB/s to an external hard disk instead of 48MB is pretty ghetto.

    Also, MS recently released a technote saying that IP over Firewire wasn't an oversight in Vista. It is a feature that will never be re-implemented.

    The 800lb gorilla has left the building and I don't think Linux and OSX computers will be enough to keep the market for firewire devices robust except.

    --
    Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
  7. Co-ax by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Funny

    Finally I can use all the 10 Base 2 crap which I squierelled away. I guess I'll have to disassemble the model Eiffel tower I made out of left over T pieces.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  8. Its like a VCR... by KoshClassic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    USB = VHS
    USB 2.0 = Super VHS
    FireWire = Beta - technically superior but doomed due to lack of marketplace penetration.

    Seems to me that the iPod was the first real killer Firewire app for the masses (yeah, video and audio pro's had their own killer apps for Firewire, but they didn't represent enough of the marketplace for that to matter. If Apple had kept the iPod's Firewire only devices (as were the first generations) something would have had to give. Either the iPod would have been DOA (in the PC world at least, since every new Mac has had at least one Firewire port for years), or PC manufacturers would have been forced to start making Firewire the standard due to demand.

    --
    Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
  9. Firewire chaining and networking by ErkDemon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I chained my PCs and external harddrives together using firewire, XP automatically recognised it as a potential network connection and gave me "LAN over firewire". Whichever PC was switched on first "got" the peripherals, and the second one got to share them over the network. No LAN cables involved, and no hubs. I also included a redundant connection to make a complete circuit, so that even if only one PC was powered up, whichever one it was could still access all the peripherals directly with no replugging. You can't do that with USB!

    --
    Eric Baird