"Satch" <satch@...> wrote; >Is PCI Faster than FIREWIRE Audio interfaces just wondering, in the transfer >of information does anyone know about the technical sides etc Way faster. Think about it - most systems and all Firewire add in cards put the Firewire interface on the PCI bus! -- PCI bus (32 bit wide @ 33 MHz)is 132 MByte/second -- Firewire is 400 Mbit per second nominally but will not deliver anything close to this to a firewire hard-drive -- typically tops out at 30 MByte per second. Both PCI have Firewire have faster versions: -- Server mobo's have PCI 66MHz/64 bit with four times the bandwidth of the usual PCI slot on a consumer oriented motherboard -- Firewire 1394b which is not a common animal is also faster than the 1394a which Macs and camcorders etc have. Regards, Murray

--- In logic-users@y..., Murray McDowall <murraymc@m...> wrote: > -- PCI bus (32 bit wide @ 33 MHz)is 132 MByte/second > -- Firewire is 400 Mbit per second nominally but will not deliver anything > close to this to a firewire hard-drive -- typically tops out at 30 MByte > per second. Why do firewire hard drives top out at 30 MByte/sec? What gives with firewire being so slow? -Doug

On Saturday, August 31, 2002, at 08:54 PM, dougkramer wrote: > --- In logic-users@y..., Murray McDowall <murraymc@m...> wrote: >> -- PCI bus (32 bit wide @ 33 MHz)is 132 MByte/second >> -- Firewire is 400 Mbit per second nominally but will not deliver >> anything >> close to this to a firewire hard-drive -- typically tops out at 30 >> MByte >> per second. > > Why do firewire hard drives top out at 30 MByte/sec? > What gives with firewire being so slow? > > -Doug in all fairness, 30MB/sec is 240Mb/sec. That number doesn't look as bad as the former equivalent. However, I have seen drives spec'ed and tested at 40MB/sec, almost reaching top FW bandwidth performance. The problem with FW drives is that they are all IDE with a FW bridge/controller. This is were you lose throughput. It is this area that will be worked on to make FW drives competitive to other standards. -otto ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------- Otto Gygax - Audio, Computer, Networking Engineering / Percussion otto@... / Philomath, Oregon

> > --- In logic-users@y..., Murray McDowall <murraymc@m...> wrote: > > Why do firewire hard drives top out at 30 MByte/sec? > > What gives with firewire being so slow? > > -Doug > --- In logic-users@y..., Otto Gygax <otto@g...> wrote: > The problem with FW drives is that they are all IDE with a FW > bridge/controller. This is were you lose throughput. It is this area > that will be worked on to make FW drives competitive to other standards. Here is something i learned last year, so this was before the upcoming FW2 and also when ATA66 was more of the standard (instead of 100 or 133): The Oxford911 is the bridge controller of choice, and with it the IDE drive itself is the limiting factor. This was back when the 75gig IBM Deskstar just came out. I wish i could quote numbers and specs, but that was the deal. What we really need is FW2, a killer bridge, and ATA133 or beyond. Having the ability to use dirt-cheap IDE drives is such a bonus, I'm not sure that an actual FW controller on a drive is a good idea. In fact (again, last year...) no manufacturer seemed to even be working on it. jbirk

--- In logic-users@y..., "dougkramer" <dougkramer@y...> wrote: > --- In logic-users@y..., Murray McDowall <murraymc@m...> wrote: > > -- PCI bus (32 bit wide @ 33 MHz)is 132 MByte/second > > -- Firewire is 400 Mbit per second nominally but will not deliver anything > > close to this to a firewire hard-drive -- typically tops out at 30 MByte > > per second. > > Why do firewire hard drives top out at 30 MByte/sec? > What gives with firewire being so slow? > FYI, 30 MBytes/sec are 240 MBits/sec. Dayo www.musicindustrylaw.com

> > > close to this to a firewire hard-drive -- typically tops out at > > > 30 MByte per second. > > > > Why do firewire hard drives top out at 30 MByte/sec? > > What gives with firewire being so slow? > > FYI, 30 MBytes/sec are 240 MBits/sec. The Firewire spec is for 400 MBits/sec, or 50 megabytes/sec though... I guess they just didn't want 1 hard drive being able to take up *all* of the FireWire bandwidth, in case you had any extra devices plugged in as well? Also for what its worth.. USB 2.0 tops out at 480 MBits/sec or 60 megabytes/sec, just a little faster than Firewire. Still not fast enough for two full-speed IDE hard drives, though maybe fast enough for Firewire drives? The new Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus (ATA133 with backwards compatibility with ATA 100/66/33)"quiet" drives can sustain up to 44.4 megabytes/sec transfers (with bursts up to 133 megabytes/sec). Even with marginally better USB 2.0 speeds you still couldn't support two full blown top-of-the-line IDE hard drives, if they could run over the cable at the same speed as they can run connected directly to the motherboard. __________________________ Jeremy; sadus@... http://www.ixks.com/~sadus =========================

> >Also for what its worth.. USB 2.0 tops out at 480 MBits/sec or 60 >megabytes/sec, just a little faster than Firewire. Still not fast >enough for two full-speed IDE hard drives, though maybe fast enough >for Firewire drives? For what it's worth I've just seen a macth between USB 2.0 hard drive and FireWire hard drive and although the FireWire is a bit slower than USB 2.0, the actual FireWire hard drives permormed better on FireWire. Correct if I'm wrong but if you get a 1.1 USB device on 2.0 chain, doesn't it slow down the faster device too ? this is unlike FireWire. Cheers -- Check out the web page for my band: Now solo works also: New home address : http://koti.welho.com/jpennane

From: "Jorma Pennanen" <jorma.pennanen@...> > >Also for what its worth.. USB 2.0 tops out at 480 MBits/sec or 60 > >megabytes/sec, just a little faster than Firewire. Still not fast > >enough for two full-speed IDE hard drives, though maybe fast enough > >for Firewire drives? > > For what it's worth I've just seen a macth between USB 2.0 hard drive > and FireWire hard drive and although > the FireWire is a bit slower than USB 2.0, the actual FireWire hard > drives permormed better on FireWire. > Correct if I'm wrong but if you get a 1.1 USB device on 2.0 chain, > doesn't it slow down the faster device too ? > this is unlike FireWire. > > Cheers Hi Jorma, According to what I know about USB (I have written 3 on-line technical introductory articles about it a couple of years back, pre-USB 2.0: http://www.sss-mag.com/usb.html), you still can have the 3 separate speeds going on simultainously under USB 2.0. Theoretically, the maximum bandwidth is 480Mb/s and by sharing devices, they will be dividing up the available bandwidth amoung themselves. However, they also caution on the www.USB.org site that: 1. Does USB support data rates besides 12 Mb/s and 1.5 Mb/s? A: Yes. The new hi-speed data transfer rate is 480 Mb/s. There is, however, wide variation in edge rates. With typical line loads, full speed devices usually fall in the 12-25 ns range, and low-speed devices typically range 110-225 ns. Which I believe is saying that by plugging in slower speed devices, they will take a bit additional of the advertised bandwidth away due to the nature of their lower-power consumption electronic designs. Hope this helps... Danny