Firewire Hard Drive

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You may have heard about Firewire (IEEE-1394) but have no clue of what it is all about. It’s not your fault, most people don’t really know because it’s not as widely used as USB connections are. I think USB has got a bit of an unfair advantage in that regard.

Firewire is more unique than a USB connection because of its ability to negotiate and understand the fastest way to transfer data to the specific device. You will find that many higher end digital cameras and video recorders have a firewire port. There is even a firewire hard drive.

Firewire is also used in manufacturing like automotive, surveillance, and food processing because it offers a lot of bandwidth with a small cable. It first came around in the 1980s but I’m not sure why it didn’t take off like USB did. Perhaps it was different marketing techniques or the fact that for the majority of time you needed to have a special firewire card to use it.

Most new computers and laptops will have a firewire port to connect your hard drive or camera. But if not, then you will require a firewire hard drive PCI card or PCMI card depending if you are using a laptop or desktop. The Firewire cable itself is very cheap compared to networking cables and doesn’t degrade the signal like USB does over long distances. It is comparable to a network cable in that respect.

For a firewire hard drive it makes transferring data quick and painless. Just to compare some speeds, it is at least 33% faster than USB to read data and up to 70% faster to write data. That is incredible when you transferring large files over 1GB.

A firewire hard drive uses a normal hard drive but it is enclosed in a case that has the firewire port. So if you have a hard drive and want to make it in to an external hard drive then you will have to buy the appropriate case which should cost less than $30. Some internal hard drives use firewire as well but I don’t recommend those since they are a bit slower than your SATA connections. Either way, I’ll take firewire over USB any day.

Fast transfer rates are the biggest reason to use a firewire hard drive. If you haven’t tried one, and have the port on your computer, then you shouldn’t hesitate any longer. I guarantee you will thank yourself for making the move.