Firewire vs USB

I'm sure that many of you have bought by the past an accessorie for your computer and wonder wich cable should you choose for the connection. Firewire or the good old USB. I recently bought a LACIE External DVD Burner and I asked myself the same question. I finally decided to use Firewire. This is why:

Why Choose Firewire

 
FireWire is one of the fastest peripheral standards ever developed, which makes it great for use with multimedia peripherals such as digital video cameras and other high-speed devices like the latest hard disk drives and printers.
 
FireWire is a cross-platform implementation of the high-speed serial data bus -- defined by the IEEE 1394-1995, IEEE 1394a-2000, and IEEE 1394b standards -- that can move large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices. It features simplified cabling, hot swapping, and transfer speeds of up to 800 megabits per second (on machines that support 1394b).
 
Major manufacturers of multimedia devices have been adopting the FireWire technology, and for good reason. FireWire speeds up the movement of multimedia data and large files and enables easy connection of digital consumer products -- including digital camcorders, digital video tapes, digital video disks, set-top boxes, and music systems -- directly to a personal computer.
 
So why choose USB when Firewire is faster: Its pretty simple. Many computer doesn't come with Firewire. This is why the portable Storage Drive are in USB. To make sure it fit on most computer.
 

Speed Test

 
Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:

• Read Test: 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0
• Read Test: 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
• Write Test: 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0
• Write Test: 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0

 
Sources:

• USB Ware
• iXBT LABS