[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by feverish Not to act smug, but I always knew USB 2.0 is faster!

Not to act smug, but apparently you've always been wrong, too

 

[lindrone]

Quote:

Originally posted by zool Also I'm glad to say now that I've change the setting to "Windows API Copy Routines" from "Internal Copy Routines" the ipod is much cooler and does not produce as much heat as it did before. So a warning to all firewire users.. Do not use "Internal Copy Routines".

Where did you even find this option?

 

[feverish]

I'm soooo sooo sorry

Boooohoooohoooo.... My measly 9 mbps is well measly.

Wahahahahaaaaa

But seriously where did you find this option?

-edit: upon further thought, I wondered- why would there be any difference between the two at all? Both of the cables' max speed far excedes what the iPod is capable of writing at. Unless the chip designed to handle the USB transfer wasn't as well made as the firewire chip. Just pondering

 

[PYROTAK]

Quote:

Originally posted by zool Why I'm only getting 7mb/sec.. I don't know, but firewire is still "suppose" to be faster then usb 2.0.. usb 2.0 can allow speeds up to 480 megabits per second while firewire can allow up to 800 megabits per second.

yeah um what kind of crack have you been smokin.

the firewire is 460 mbps or 440 i don't remember
and firewire2 is 800 mbps

im pretty sure that ipods use firewire1

usb2.0 is 480mbps btw.

the only advantage that firewire has over usb is that it does not use the cpu to process rather it has its own controller

 

[lindrone]

Firewire 1 is 400mbps. However, USB protocol has a lot more overhead in the way it communicates (not sure if it comes from header data in the packets, or just the way it passes data along...).. so USB 2.0, despite its 480mbps rating, often performs slower or just equal to Firewire. It doesn't really run any faster. It's especially apparent when you transfer large amount of files (or just large files), and much less apparent when you do small files.

Theoretically, it shouldn't make any difference in which cable and connection method you use. In reality, USB 2.0 still sucks up some overhead. So it's still a bit slower than Firewire.. although pretty much neglible.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by feverish why would there be any difference between the two at all? Both of the cables' max speed far excedes what the iPod is capable of writing at. Unless the chip designed to handle the USB transfer wasn't as well made as the firewire chip. Just pondering

The two technologies are completely different. USB2.0 has a higher (and only theoretical) maximum burst transfer rate, but for sustained bulk transfers, FireWire will almost always be faster, usually significantly faster. Plus if you have any other devices connected to the same USB bus -- especially if any of those devices are USB1.1 devices -- you're going to see slower speeds, often significantly slower.


Quote:

Originally posted by PYROTAK yeah um what kind of crack have you been smokin. [snip] the only advantage that firewire has over usb is that it does not use the cpu to process rather it has its own controller

Starting out your responses with remarks like "why kind of crack have you been smokin" only sounds clever when you actually know what you're talking about

Not only is FireWire processor independent, it also supports peer-to-peer transfers, has better device management, provides significantly better power capabilities, is more effective for bulk data transfers, better supports multiple devices on the same bus... etc., etc., etc. There's really no comparison. USB2.0's only advantage is that because Intel licenses it for free, it's more widely available. The 480 vs. 400 comparison is little more than theoretical PR spec. In the real world, USB2.0 is slower than FireWire overall, and for things like bulk data transfers, it can't really come close. And that's compared to FireWire 400, which was around for years before USB2.0.

 

[zool]

Quote:

Originally posted by lindrone Where did you even find this option?

It's an option in EphPod.. For people that don't use EphPod maybe this wont be a problem. Sorry, should have been more clear about that.

http://www.ephpod.com/

 

[lindrone]

Thanks for clearing that up.. that's probably what happened... Hmm.. Yeah, iTunes doesn't have that feature anywhere. I don't use EphPod anymore

 

[feverish]

Ya, that 9 mbps figure was from when I was using ephpod, which I don't anymore cause I've switched to iTunes.

Does iTunes tell you the transfer rate? And if so, Where?

 

[feverish]

Quote:

Originally posted by MacDEF The two technologies are completely different. USB2.0 has a higher (and only theoretical) maximum burst transfer rate, but for sustained bulk transfers, FireWire will almost always be faster, usually significantly faster. Plus if you have any other devices connected to the same USB bus -- especially if any of those devices are USB1.1 devices -- you're going to see slower speeds, often significantly slower.

I think you missed what I was getting at:
I was saying that since the iPod can only write to its hard drive at about 20 mbps, any difference between firewire and usb speeds (480 vs 400, or signifcantly lower than 480 vs 400 ) would equate to nothing because they would transfer faster than the iPod could write. So the difference in speeds must be because the two different chips in the iPod are communicating to the hard drive differently. Do you get what I'm saying?

 

[zool]

Why did you change to iTunes? Any advantages over EphPod?

 

[lindrone]

Since it was the app that iPod was meant to work with.. it's also the one it works the best with. The file management in general is just a bit easier than EphPod. EphPod copied the same interface, but there's some screwy way about selecting files and modifying their tags and things that I didn't like much.

The one thing that really puts it over the top for me though, is not support for AAC or iTunes Music Store, it's the "smart" playlists. You can create playlist that updates themselves based on certain criterium (for example, all songs by XXX artist in genre XXX and rating of XXX).

The same playlist is migrated over to the iPod.

The only thing you have to remember, is iTunes, when first installed, hides its "browse" view, which is the same view that EphPod copied. It might be a bit disorienting without the browse view turned on. To turn on browse view, click on the "eye" icon on the upper right corner.

Before iTunes though, EphPod was the best.

 

[zool]

I'm having some problems getting iTunes to work with my iPod..

Do I need to reset/reformat the iPod in order to go from EphPod to iTunes?

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by feverish I think you missed what I was getting at: I was saying that since the iPod can only write to its hard drive at about 20 mbps, any difference between firewire and usb speeds (480 vs 400, or signifcantly lower than 480 vs 400 ) would equate to nothing because they would transfer faster than the iPod could write. So the difference in speeds must be because the two different chips in the iPod are communicating to the hard drive differently. Do you get what I'm saying?

PYROTAK's ignorant comments aside

, yes, I undestand what you're saying in theory. However, two things: (1) where did you hear that that fastest the iPod can write to its hard drive is 20mbps? and (2) when a USB2.0 drive is sharing a bus, its throughput can indeed slow below the iPod's own ability to transfer data. This isn't just "theory" -- I've seen it happen. Take an iPod and connect it to a PC with both FireWire and USB2.0 (with other USB devices connected) and compare the transfer rates; you'll probably be surprised.

 

[Frenchman]

I'll be a smartass and point out Firewire is actually more processor intensive then USB, it merely shifts that processing offboard to a seperate chip (the smart way, essentially).

As for speed, no. 20mbps (usually lowercase b means bits, btw) is slower then crap. Even if you meant bytes, it's still crap. The current line of Toshiba 1.8in PCMCIA drives are quite fast, 100MBps to be somewhat precise. However, it is quite possible that they have reduced to speed to an acceptable level (20MBps perhaps) in an effort to reduce harddrive wear/tear and battery consumption. Originally these things were marketed as portable drives, and limiting speed helps keep your idiot iPod from running itself out of battery quickly.

The bus slowing is something that usually relates to idiot USB controllers. Since only one device can operate on the bus at once, it's possible to have a 2.0 and 1.0 (or 1.1) device on at the same time. For convience though, many controllers simply drop to the lowest common denominator. In any case, it's a better idea to keep only ONE device in at the same time as MacDef said.

What I find most interesting is this EphPod program. I'd be very interested to find out exactly what it's doing when it give you the option of using different copy API's. Perhaps an interesting feature Apple left off in the name of compatibility? Ah, if only I had the time.