How does USB and Firewire compare in speed anyway?

Submitted by damo22

There are 2 common USB speeds, and quite a few firewire speeds. According to Wikipedia, some of them are:

  • USB Full Speed (USB 1.1) 12 Mbit/s 1.5 MB/s
  • FireWire (IEEE 1394a) 100 98.304 Mbit/s 12.288 MB/s
  • FireWire (IEEE 1394a) 200 196.608 Mbit/s 24.576 MB/s
  • FireWire (IEEE 1394a) 400 393.216 Mbit/s 49.152 MB/s
  • USB Hi-Speed (USB 2.0) 480 Mbit/s 60 MB/s
  • FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 800 786.432 Mbit/s 98.304 MB/s
  • FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 1600 1.572864 Gbit/s 196.608 MB/s
  • FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 3200 3.145728 Gbit/s 393.216 MB/s

So when you buy a firewire controller, keep in mind there are different speeds available. The most common one is known as “s400” a little slower than USB 2.0 . The “s800” is quite a bit faster than USB 2.0, but comes at a price. Also the Firewire 800 cards use a different 9-pin plug, and will need an adapter for the good old fashioned 6-pin devices, but are backwards compatible.