USB 2.0 is considered to be the future of data transmission, but is it faster than FireWire? This article will look at the differences between the two and that would be right for your computer. We will also look at why a high speed connection is so important for users these days.
Both USB connectors have been around for years. They are even compatible on computers that came without an external FireWire port. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus and is considered to be the universal standard connector for connecting computer peripherals such as printers, scanners, disk drives and other peripheral devices. FireWire is a high speed serial bus connector commonly used to connect audio devices, video cards and other high speed electronic devices with a host computer. Because of their similarities, many people believe that they are actually one and the same.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of connection. A quick and easy way to compare them would be to compare a typical web camera with a printer or scanner to a traditional personal computer. The former is very fast and can transfer massive amounts of data in a matter of seconds. The latter would require the user to physically connect the device to the computer in order to begin transferring data. Even then, the transfer would only be temporary.
The answer to the question, “Is USB 2.0 faster than Firewire?” would depend on the purpose of the connection and how quickly the user wanted to transfer data. If the purpose of the connection is to connect a printer to a personal computer, then the difference would not be much.
However, the situation becomes different when we consider the use of USB to connect a flash drive or other such device to a computer. If the purpose of the connection is to connect a USB flash drive to the computer, then the speed of the connection would be directly related to the speed of the computer. It would be quite slow if the connection is made using Firewire. However, this would not be a problem for most users. After all, most personal computers have USB ports just next to the Firewire ports.
USB 2.0 however is backwards compatible with USB 1.X devices and thus, it would appear that the newer USB ports are faster than Firewire. This however is not true. The USB port itself is much faster than Firewire.
