FireWire kicks SCSI’s butt, and it’s more robust than USB 2.0 as well. That’s the analysis of ZDNet’s Stephan Somogyi in a recent commentary entitled Why you should be using FireWire. Somogyi lauds the interface’s increased adoption by PC manufacturers and peripheral makers.
“FireWire is the next SCSI. Only Intel and a few other companies don’t want you to know this,” said Somogyi.
Somogyi decries SCSI, saying the interface’s “hassles are no longer acceptable.” FireWire is easier to work with because unlike SCSI, users don’t have to play with device IDs, termination problems and cabling issues.
Somogyi goes on to cite Sun’s adoption of FireWire — a.k.a. IEEE 1394 — and support for FireWire in the Linux kernel itself as further evidence that industry adoption of the standard is increasing. There’s a roadblock in the way of ubiquitous adoption, according to Somogyi, and it’s called Intel.
The computer chip giant is promoting USB 2.0 as its own preferred high-speed expansion bus, but Somogyi said the interface is hampered by limitations like using too much processing power and offering no peer-to-peer mode. Plus USB 2.0 isn’t even on the market yet in any real way, while FireWire is already well established.
“[FireWire] solves a whole slew of really annoying problems, is a mature technology, is vendor-neutral, is already inexpensive to implement on any platform, and is only going to keep getting cheaper,” said Somogyi.
Thanks for telling the Wintel world what we Mac owners have known since 1999, Stephan!