Hard Disks: Firewire Vs. USB

By: David Stone

These two technologies are competing to be the best way to
connect electronics together. They both began as a connection to
your PC or Mac, but they have grown to be a form of data
transfer between almost any electrical data storage device. See
who is the winner in one of the biggest technological races of
this century. USB fist showed up on the map to solve the problem
of Plug N' Play devices. Most devices were, at that time,
connected to a computer via a serial port. Serial ports were not
intended for such a wide application of uses and it is a
relatively slow port. What USB set out to do was to create a
standardized plug that can be duplicated easily with adapters
and hubs. The result was the same standard port you see today.
It is much faster now than its original version, but it has
remained as unchanged as a wall socket. When it was introduced,
you actually create 144 USB ports from just one source by
duplicating it with hubs. Of course, the PC needs to able to
handle the software load. USB started popping up on all types of
devices from digital cameras to MP3 players. It is now used to
even connect devices together with out even using a computer.
Firewire came about shortly after the release of USB. This
severely hurt the spread of its use because USB had quickly
become a standard for personal computers. It was developed by
Apple and released in 1995 on its G3 Power Mac. Apple had the
advantage of being the standard computer in the artistic
community, so this was the edge that they had on USB. It took a
couple of years, but consumer electronics began using Firewire
to appeal to the industry that connected video and sound
equipment to their Macs. It was also praised for its speed of
data transfer. It was nearly impossible to transfer digitized
video via USB because it was too slow. Firewire affected the
entertainment industry in such a way it won the 2001 Primetime
Emmy Engineering Award. Which technology is better? With the
release of USB 2.0, USB has dominated Firewire and almost made
it disappear in the PC industry. Mac still embraces it; even
cell phones have USB ports on them. USB is now fast, universal
and you can actually charge devices like cell phones and iPods
through a USB port. Firewire started out with the speed, but USB
has pulled ahead in a dominating way.

About the author:
David Stone is a regular contributor of articles on computers
and technology. Find more great information at
http://www.hard-disk-help.info