[X4U] USB 2.0 vs Firewire?

[Eddie Hargreaves]

On 4/28/07 12:03 PM, Robert A. (Bob) Hall <rahall at ptd.net> wrote:

> Will someone tell me  why I should use FireWire for an external Backup drive
> instead of USB 2.0.

Macs with a FireWire port can boot from an external FW HD. That is not
necessarily the case with USB2. Some Macs can boot from it, but many cannot.
Of course, if you are not cloning your computer to your backup drive, this
will not be of importance.

> I guess my real question what is the practice difference between FW and USB
> 2.0? The specs indicate transfer rates of USB 2.0 are faster than FireWire
> [FireWire 400 - 400Mbps (or 50MB/sec) and USB 2.0 - 480Mbps (or 60MB/sec)].
> However, I  seem to remember articles that indicated there were technical
> reasons why FireWire provided better actual throughput. I haven't been able to
> find such articles now.

Although USB 2 is rated for 480Mbps, it rarely achieves that rate.