300 GB Maxtor One Touch II, 16MB buffer - FireWire v. USB2.0

[AMD Die Hard]

N.B. Also posted in Highly Technical (still 1st page) and General Hardware (waaay lost)


I deceided to get a Maxtor One Touch 300 GB externaml hard drive.

This thing can handle either USB 2.0 or 1394 Fire Wire. So, to satisfy my own curiusity, I decided to benchmark the drive using HDTach.

When I tested the drive with USB 2.0 on my Neo2's integrated port, I averaged 29.6 MB/sec with a CPU utilization of 8% and average read of 28.1.

When I switched to the integrated firewire port on my Neo2 I averaged 41.5 MB/sec with a CPU utlization of 2% and an average read of 39.6 MB/sec. A 33% increase using Fire wire over USB 2.0. I knew that firewire was faster despite having a lower theoretical bandwidth (480 MB/s for USB 2.0 and 400 MB/s for firewire), but this exceeded my expectations.

I also tested the drive on the firewire port integrated on my Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer. It was interesting that with the Audigy Gamer I averaged 42.7 MB/sec with a CPU utilization of 2% and an average read of 40.7. That is an additional 3% speed increase for the Sound Blater Audigy (not Audigy 2) firewire over the MSI integrated firewire.

I can only assume that there is some sort of driver maturity that allowed the Sound Blaster to edge out the MSI for firewire transfer. Anyone else have any theories?

 

[akira34]

Not 100% sure why the sound card FW port gives you 3% better than the onboard does. Could be the FW chip that is used in both items that's making the difference.

I am glad to see someone document (through real tests) the speed FW (a or 400) has over USB2. It would be interesting to see some speed tests on FW b (800) to compare. Then test the next speed increase of FireWire and see how it does against whatever the fastest USB interface is. I'd wager that FireWire will still beat the USB interface even if it claims to be twice as fast.

This could have something to do with how FireWire was designed from the very beginning. It started out as a high speed data transfer protocol. Where USB started off for low speed peripherals data transfer. Initially USB was for keyboards and mice, only later getting into storage devices. FW, started off with storage devices and burners. To think the oldest FireWire interface still beats the latest USB interface when it comes to real world speed tests...

Gotta love it.

 

[AMD Die Hard]

If anyone wants to send me a FWb add in card to test this drive with I will benchmark it and send it back to you. The drive does support the next gen FW.


Hmm, yea like anyone is going to do that.

 

[akira34]

Well, the cards are not THAT expensive you know... You can get at least one of them for under $50...

 

[AMD Die Hard]

I was mistaken, the drive does not support 1394b, rather it supports i.link which is the mac equivalent of firewire. Hmm, this model just came out, I am surprised that they didn't incorporate the new technology. Especially since they went to the effort of putting 3 ports on the back of the thing.

 

[intogamer]

lol. lucky you. I threw away my firewire card shouldn't have done that lol.

 

[akira34]

Originally posted by: AMD Die Hard
I was mistaken, the drive does not support 1394b, rather it supports i.link which is the mac equivalent of firewire. Hmm, this model just came out, I am surprised that they didn't incorporate the new technology. Especially since they went to the effort of putting 3 ports on the back of the thing.

Actually, i.link was done up (originally) by Sony, NOT Apple... It's a low-balled version of FireWire since it's ONLY 4 pins, not 6. The 6 pin connection type first used by Apple also provides power to devices that can be bus powered. Devices such as mobile FireWire hard drives (using the 2.5" drive mechanism).

FireWire b uses a 9 pin connection. The physical size of the two full pin ports is pretty close to each other. While the cheap-ass i.link port is about half the size of either port.