USB 2.0 brings on the speed, but can it be faster than FireWire?

Page 1  2  3
The ubiquitous universal serial bus (USB) has simplified the personal computing experience. The "jack-of-all-trades" nature of USB has made it ideal for connecting additional PC peripherals without opening the computer. The drawback of the original USB standard (v1.1) was its relatively slow speed. High-speed devices such as external hard drives and CD/DVD recorders require a fast connection to take full advantage of their performance, and the USB interface has been the bottleneck in these situations.

Enter FireWire. Over 33 times faster (theoretically) than USB 1.1, FireWire (IEEE 1394) became the de facto standard for high-speed external devices, including every digital video (DV) camera sold today. Partially owned and widely common on Apple computers, FireWire's increasing PC popularity has closely paralleled the explosion of consumer digital video. It also happens to be a great networking interface. Windows XP and Apple's OS X natively support networking with FireWire, providing an easy way to create a faster-than-Ethernet LAN.

An update to USB was inevitable, and the next-generation USB standard has arrived. USB 2.0 offers a 40-times increase in speed (theoretically) while remaining backwards compatible with USB 1.1 devices. USB 2.0 has already become an integrated feature of new computers and all new motherboards sold today. TechTV is receiving a steady stream of USB 2.0 products from a growing list of manufacturers, and we thought now would be a good time to evaluate some upgrade options as well as discuss the different uses of FireWire and USB 2.0.

Theoretical speeds and our observations

Don't be confused by the rated speeds you see emblazoned across USB 2.0 and FireWire product boxes. Despite USB 2.0's 80 Kbps speed advantage over FireWire, our testing showed that the additional overhead of USB 2.0 made it slower than FireWire. For high-bandwidth devices such as external hard drives, the difference was as high as 70 percent. On a positive note, we noticed that the CPU usage of each interface was similar on our Pentium 4 1.3-GHz test system. During a 1.54GB data transfer from our system's internal hard drive to an external drive, USB 2.0 averaged 40 percent CPU usage compared to 37 percent for FireWire.

We also found that integrated USB 2.0 solutions matched the performance of add-on PCI cards to within a percentage point. In fact, all of the USB 2.0 cards we looked at offered nearly identical performance when compared to each other; this was true for the FireWire cards we examined as well.

Which do you need?

If you need a high-speed interface, first consider what it is you are trying to do. If your only concern is getting digital video from your camcorder into your PC, then FireWire is the solution. If you have purchased an external CD burner that is "USB 2.0 ready" but records at a painfully slow 4x on your old USB 1.1 connection, then a USB 2.0 upgrade would be a good way to get maximum performance out of something you already own.

Plugging a USB 1.1 device into a USB 2.0 connection will not make it perform any faster. This applies to USB hubs as well. A USB 1.1 hub plugged into a USB 2.0 connection will not transform it into a USB 2.0 hub. Companies such as Belkin are currently offering USB 2.0 upgrade kits that include a USB 2.0 card as well as a USB 2.0-ready hub. As you may have guessed, there is no way to upgrade a USB 1.1 interface to the USB 2.0 standard; it's a completely different animal that plays nice with its predecessor.

Don't expect every manufacturer of USB 1.1 products to suddenly switch over to USB 2.0. USB 1.1 is fine for low-bandwidth devices like mice and keyboards, and adding a higher-priced USB 2.0 chipset to a $40 scanner is something no manufacturer is likely to do. Initially, we will see devices such as digital still cameras, high-end scanners, external disc recorders, and premium digital music players integrate USB 2.0, followed by everything else as chipset prices fall.

Page 1  2  3