a FireWire cable question

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Paul Nevai - 16 Sep 2006 12:49 GMT

Both the Apple brand thin FireWire cable and the Belkin retractable FireWire
cable are a gazillion times more practical than the heavy duty standard
FireWire cables.

QUESTION. In real life usage, are the thin cables working at the same speed
as the heavy duty ones?

[in my limited and amateurish testing the answer seems to be "yes"]

Thanks, PaulN

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Jon - 16 Sep 2006 13:41 GMT

> [in my limited and amateurish testing the answer seems to be "yes"]

Mine, too, fwiw. Though in most instances it seems to be the disk at
either end that limmits speed more than the wire/bus. I.e.., a 2.5" disk
(laptop) or 1.75" (iPod) will not achieve the theoretical max of a FW
400 connection in any case, and even most 3.5" drives top out somewhere
between 20 and 30 MB/s (160-240 mbps -- and FW 400, as its name implies,
has a theoretical max of 400 mbps, with real life very close to that).

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David Empson - 17 Sep 2006 04:26 GMT

> > [in my limited and amateurish testing the answer seems to be "yes"]
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> between 20 and 30 MB/s (160-240 mbps -- and FW 400, as its name implies,
> has a theoretical max of 400 mbps, with real life very close to that).

My Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm 250 MB drive (bought late 2005) has
achieved transfer rates of about 40 MB/s (320 Mbps) on Firewire 400 in a
couple of computers.

On Firewire 800, it was just able to exceed 50 MB/s, implying that the
40 MB/s limit was about the maximum achievable on Firewire 400.

(USB 2 was more like 17 MB/s.)

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David Empson
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Mac Forum / General / Hardware / September 2006

a FireWire cable question