For users who require faster external storage, third-generation FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b) provides a very credible alternative to USB 2.0. Championed by Apple and Sony, FireWire 800 now boasts a maximum data transfer rate of 800 megabits per second (about 100 megabytes per second).
The first FireWire 800 drive on the market is the new LaCie D2 200Gbyte external drive. It is backwards-compatible so this new drive will also support the older 50Mbit/s FireWire 400 standard. USB 2.0 is also supported on the drive. Faster FireWire brings huge benefits for the playback and editing of multimedia files. While heavy users may dive right in, most people have no reason to switch yet. Your older FireWire equipment will not run any faster, and you must buy new cables to attach older four-pin devices to the new nine-pin bus.
One other note: a FireWire 800 interface to an external drive won’t yield improved performance unless the internal drive can make use of the extra bandwidth (more than 35 to 40Mbit/s). In addition, FireWire 800 can run over 300 feet with special cables, which allows interesting networking and drive-sharing possibilities. Today, most FireWire 800 devices are external hard drives; DV equipment may get upgraded later.
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12/09/2003
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