Firewire, We Will Miss You
I was both amazed and disappointed to find that the new MacBooks no longer sport a FireWire port. I can't help but feel that this was a serious mistake on Apple's part. Firewire was both an unique add-on for new users and a beloved feature for those who've long since come to appreciate the speed and flexibility that it offers.
Why is Firewire so great?
The number one reason that FireWire 400 is so awesome is that it has a sustained throughput that is faster than USB 2.0. (even though USB 2.0 has a higher maximum speed, it has a lower average speed) And anyone who has ever had to copy hundreds of gigs of data will heartily agree that faster is better. But coming in a close second to speed is the beloved feature called Target Disk Mode. There is a good chance that even if you own a Mac, you've never used this feature. But for those of you who have, you understand what a God-send this feature can be.
Target Disk Mode allows you to turn any Mac with a firewire 400 port into an external hard drive. To do this you power down your target Mac, connect it to another Mac via a FireWire 400 cable and then restart the first Mac holding down the "t" key. As soon as it boots up all of the first Mac's hard drives are automatically mounted on the second Mac's Desktop. I can't stress enough how useful this is. For instance, imagine if your iMac had a bad screen but you needed to get some files off of it, what would you do? Well, you could connect it to another screen, but what if you don't have a spare screen lying around? Target Disk Mode to the rescue! What if you need to clone the hard drive in an existing Mac for backup purposes? Target Disk Mode is there for you once again. I can't recall the number of times I've either backed up a machine using TDM and SuperDuper. Of course, if you need to do an emergency restore then it works just the same. You connect to your Mac and then run whatever app you want to reformat or restore your drive.
This was one of those features that really seperated Macs from everybody else. This was something that was easy to do, extremely powerful, practically bullet-proof and quite invaluable. So it remains a mystery as to why Apple scrapped this feature, especially in light of the fact that you can't replicate this with USB 2.0. Maybe Apple is moving away from the Firewire standard entirely. If so, that would be a great tragedy indeed. Speaking as someone who uses Firewire 400 and 800, I can't go back to USB. I can't live at those low speeds anymore.
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
The writings been on the wall for some time as regards firewire.
I think too the macbook is a consumer mac and as usb drives are lower in cost to their firewire brethren. Being cheaper most consumers will buy the usb drive anyway ignorant of the advantages of firewire. Maybe Apple has seen this.
You said it yourself, most people don’t know about it and never used it.
Why must the majority of people pay for something they never use just to keep a few others happy. I have no use for Firewire anymore, bye, bye.
So if you have any sort of DV camera made over the last seven or eight years that uses Firewire to digitize video, which is almost all of them, then you CANNOT get a new Macbook. You either have to get the more expensive Macbook Pro AND and an adapter, or just get a PC.
And does anyone know if the Firewire-only HDD features are going to be updated to work with USB?
As for the death of FireWire, as we know it, is premature. The technology forum (IEEE 1394) just released the latest upshots to the fastest, most reliable (meaning isochronous) peripheral interconnect available.
S1600 and S3200 implementations are now officially out (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface#FireWire_S1600_and_S3200) and this PDF from HANA http://www.hanaalliance.org/files/static_page_files/E0E50115-1D09-3519-ADC601B0261ED64E/HANA_1394 over coax_FINAL3 _2_.pdf )
I do agree that as a PC peripheral interconnect USB2 and soon USB3 will win that completely. Niche pro dudes with 1394 pro camcorders will need 1394 cards or Apple pro gear.
Until USB can give reliable and robust isochronous mode there is no replacement for FireWire. It is a very efficient protocol approaching that of its rated PHY speed. USB just can’t match that. My PHY-to-application layer tests of USB2 shows a 25% efficiency (480Mbps PHY vs. 120Mbps actual application throughput). Firewire S400 actually can give you damn near 400Mbps! Take that USB.
Now you thought you had it so good.
Any of you that have an Air already know what’s coming, system restore utility over Ethernet. Bank. I was a little let down though, especially over the loss of target disk mode. I use target disk almost everyday, but I am not going to complain too much until I really know what I have lost if anything. Firewire isn’t going away, firewire over cat5 will more than likely the replacement. I am not going to bank that one yet but it is getting a hard look. I wouldn’t work myself into too much of a frenzy until the results are in.
I have been an apple pro user for a long time now, Apple is always ahead of the curve, get use to it. You can still get Firewire on the MacBook Pro and if you need a 400 conection they make a 800 to 400 converter cable. Soon however cables will no longer be needed, everything will go wireless.
Read “The FireWire Controversy” by Eric Schwarz and my follow-up notes at http://www.maccompanion.com/macc/archives/November2008/Columns/SchwarzTech.htm