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Firewire Harddrives
schmack writes "VST Technologies have recently released FireWire Harddrives. They look fantastic in stunning red and yellow with that swell FireWire image on them. They perform pretty good too -- 400Mbps transfer rate, you don't need a power supply if you're not connecting more than one [FireWire will provide enough juice] and they come in 2, 4 and 6 GIG configurations.
These drives here look like much better performers. The drives max theoretical transfer rate may not be 80MB/sec, but the sustained read/writes are good for a non-array mid-level drive. Too bad they have highend prices.
Even if you have that Cheetah drive stuck to that 80MB/sec U2W card, it will still only produce in the neighborhood of about 15-18MB/sec sustained, probably less. Keep that in mind before you blow off this 50MB/sec Firewire.
Exactly what was said above, most of you have missed the point. It's portable, no external power required (= CONVIENENT!!!), and cute (which is in-line with Mac market demands). A bit on the pricey side, but so are most Mac toys. They'll sell some of these and make money.
What would be even better (and I'm sure will come soon if not already) are drives for use on PC's, to operate under *nix and Windoze. Of course, I'm not sure what the "perfect" interface is, as USB (esp. with USB 2.0 coming soon with a much faster transfer rate than current 12mbps USB 1.0) is as convienent as FireWire and currently more widely accepted and marketed.
The key here is that we need a convienent, universally accepted/compatible, good performer for the price, external accessory interface and prehiphals to use on this interface to solve all of the mirad demands of computer users as we become more mobile (esp. with the coming wireless broadband revolution to take place over the next few years). At some point this interface also has to address internal system requirements too (i.e. we ought to be able to get internal components to run on this same bus/interface).
At some point networking and these interface models will merge so that you will have essentially a single connection model/protocol to harness the capabilities of storage devices, input devices (i.e. keyboard, mouse, scanner, pen), output devices (i.e. monitor, LCD, printer) communication devices (i.e. network, fax) and even processor devices (i.e. CPU, memory) so that more "black box" devices can be sold, sealed-case, and all integrated together simply by plugging them all into a common interface (be it wired and/or wireless). This is inline with the "smart appliance" model where our toasters, video phones, and other consumer electronics will also talk on this common medium and allow everything to share everything (i.e. you plug an additional CPU device into your 'net and suddenly most of your apps will run faster and Joey can now play that new game on the home theater which required more horsepower than you had yesterday).
Utopia. It's gonna come to be, and when it does the days of computers and geeks will have passed on to the days of mass market consumer electronics and the "next big thing" will be on the agenda (i.e. cloning, space travel, etc.).
If you've read this dribble this far, I'd be surprised.
IDE is 2 devices per chain. No competition at all.
IDE drives are cheaper 'cause there's no smarts on the drive itself. It uses precious CPU time to do I/O. Thanks, but no thanks.
IDE doesn't hotswap. Firewire does.
Forget IDE. Let's go to SCSI.
SCSI needs unique IDs for every device on the chain. Firewire negotiates.
SCSI doesn't hotswap. Firewire does.
SCSI is limited to 7 (15) devices in each chain. Firewire is limited(!) to 63. I'm at 7 SCSI now.
SCSI cable lengths are voodoo, and must be shorter the faster you go (increased crosstalk on parallel data lines).
SCSI cables are much more fragile than Firewire.
SCSI cable connector - there're 3 or 4 different ones, aren't there? Firewire has two.
Yes, Firewire is a subset of SCSI - but not the hardware. It's a subset of the SCSI protocol. It says nothing (IIRC) regarding the hardware (I could be wrong on this one).
SCSI requires a computer in the chain.
SCSI termination... ugh. "Let's see... is my internal drive terminated?" "Do I terminate this one, or maybe that one?" Give me a break. Firewire doesn't hassle you with ANY of that. Plug the d*** thing in.
SCSI has big honkin' connectors. Firewire is little bitty. Think Palm.
USB is slow, slow slow.
USB is limited(!) to 127. Firewire loses here.
USB requires a computer in the chain. Firewire doesn't. Firewire is peer-to-peer. I thought we settled this conceptual hash a while back (with p-t-p being better).
Not sure about USB cable lengths.
USB 2.0 is vapor... I don't want to hear, "Wait 'til next year..." That's loser talk.
Follow the link
This thing is the size of a big wallet and requires nothing but a FireWire cable to plug into it. It's from VST, a company that also makes a lot of notebook accessories and drives. This is not a giant desktop drive for use with digital video, nor is it representative of what a FireWire drive aimed at such a market could do. Get a grip.
This is the coolest thing about firewire, even cooler than its size and not needing a power supply:
You can unplug it during file transfer. Plug it back in and it completes the file transfer. Coolest shit in the world. It even works if you're playing a movie on the firewire drive. You're watching a Star Wars trailer off the VST drive and then -oops- your friend trips over the cable and unplugs it. Plug it back in and the movie picks up where it left off.