Transfer Speed of USB and Firewire Interfaces

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Not too long ago (but long enough so that I don't remember enough key
words to narrow down a Google search) there was a discussion here
about the speed - ultimately related to the number of audio streams at
a given sample rate - that could be passed by USB 1.1, USB 2.0,
Firewire 400 and Firewire 800.

Could someone either dig that thread up for me, recap the conclusion,
or point me to the real source of the information? I understand the
mantra "Nothing is guaranteed, consider yourself lucky if you get half
what the theory predicts." I don't really want to know for my own use,
but I want the information for an article comparing various ways to
move digital audio from one place to another (as audio, not files) and
I'd like it to be reasonably factual.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Mike Rivers wrote:
- ultimately related to the number of audio streams at
> a given sample rate - that could be passed by USB 1.1, USB 2.0,
> Firewire 400 and Firewire 800.
>
> Could someone either dig that thread up for me, recap the conclusion,
> or point me to the real source of the information? I understand the
> mantra "Nothing is guaranteed, consider yourself lucky if you get
half
> what the theory predicts." I don't really want to know for my own
use,
> but I want the information for an article comparing various ways to
> move digital audio from one place to another (as audio, not files)
and
> I'd like it to be reasonably factual.


"USB was not designed to handle large blocks of streaming data, such as
digital audio, as efficiently as FireWire does, so it demands more
processing overhead for any given audio command."

< http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_ou [...] index.html >

< http://emusician.com/hardware/emusic_fired/index.html >

< http://emusician.com/special_repor [...] index.html >

< http://emusician.com/tutorials/emu [...] index.html >

the biggest difference is not speed but protocol, ie, firewire does not
need a computer to facilitate the interface between devices.

and you might also be interested in mlan, "one cable to rule them all."
< http://www.yamaha.co.jp/tech/1394mLAN/english/ >

dale
long run audio

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

The issue is kind of dead for sound recording until you start to want a
zillion tracks.
I use a no fan, no external power supply StarTech.com external hard drive
case, USB2.0 with a 2.5" 5400 rpm, ultra quiet, Seagate 100gig drive.
If you think I like this external drive a bit, your right. 100 gigs in a
shirt pocket and almost silent in its foam case.

It can copy a 1.5 gig audio file to my slower Celeron laptop in 2.2 mins.
It can copy a 1.5 gig audio file to a different partition in the same
external drive in 4.5 mins.

So the issue of bandwidth now being more important than "speed" is true, but
I am happy enough with USB2 for audio recording use.

Rich Peet


"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1102469309k@trad...
>
> Not too long ago (but long enough so that I don't remember enough key
> words to narrow down a Google search) there was a discussion here
> about the speed - ultimately related to the number of audio streams at
> a given sample rate - that could be passed by USB 1.1, USB 2.0,
> Firewire 400 and Firewire 800.
>
> Could someone either dig that thread up for me, recap the conclusion,
> or point me to the real source of the information? I understand the
> mantra "Nothing is guaranteed, consider yourself lucky if you get half
> what the theory predicts." I don't really want to know for my own use,
> but I want the information for an article comparing various ways to
> move digital audio from one place to another (as audio, not files) and
> I'd like it to be reasonably factual.
>
>
>
> --
> I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
> However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
> lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
> you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
> and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Rich Peet wrote:

> The issue is kind of dead for sound recording until you start to want a
> zillion tracks.
> I use a no fan, no external power supply StarTech.com external hard drive
> case, USB2.0 with a 2.5" 5400 rpm, ultra quiet, Seagate 100gig drive.
> If you think I like this external drive a bit, your right. 100 gigs in a
> shirt pocket and almost silent in its foam case.

So, how many tracks are you able to reliably playback on your drive?
Have you found any sort of limit?

--
Eric

www.Raw-Tracks.com

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Rich Peet wrote:
> Somewhere I have an application that measures the bandwidth for audio of a
> hard drive. I will post if I can find that program.

Try <http://www.sesa.es/us/dl/dskbench.zip>