Reign of Firewire
By Jordan Tiburcio, Technical Support Engineer
December, 2010
To the average person, Firewire sounds dangerous and something that one should not play with. As our parents once told us to never play with fire.. or anything with fire.
In the world of technology, Firewire plays a much different role and a role that is about to evolve how data is transmitted from a source to a target. – Still sounds dangerous to the normal person.
The Firewire was created by Apple Inc. and was released and standardized on 1995 as the specification IEEE 1394 High Performance Serial Bus. The development of the technology started in the late 1980s. You can find out more about the 1394 Trade Association here.
Apple’s goal was to create a replacement for the old parallel SCSI while maintaining a low implementation cost and a simplified cabling system. Aside from that, the technology was intended to provide:
- Fast Transfer of Data
- Ability to put lots of devices on the bus
- Ease of use
- Hot-Pluggable ability
- Provision of power through the cable
- Plug and Play performance
Sony has it’s own implementation of the system and called it iLink. The iLink however uses a smaller connector with only four signal circuits. This interface can be found on Sony Cameras and Decks.
Firewire is commonly used for data storage devices (Firewire External Drives) because it can provide high speed file transfer, and is also found on most DV and HDV cameras and Decks because of the ability to provide deck control and faster data access.
Firewire has evolved from one form to another and wide variety of cables and connectors have been developed to suit different devices. This different types of firewire cables also vary in data speed. The most common ones are:
- 4 pin cables (4 circuits found in iLink)
- 6 pin cables (6 circuits, as initially used by Apple Computer)
- 9 pin cables (also called Firewire 800 and is much superior to the 4 and 6 pins)
But quite recently, several improvements to FireWire were announced providing a much faster data transfer and it is intended to compete with the new USB 3.0. The S3200 Firewire which was featured at this demonstration in 2009 is a prime example of this.
FireWire is definitely a technology that can cater to both consumer and the enterprise market because of its low cost and simplicity. Every Macintosh computer today (except the Mac Book Air and Mac Book) comes with FireWire 800. Most computer brands such as HP, Dell, Sony, etc. comes with FireWire ports as well. And because of the plans to enhance this medium in the future, the flame will continue to burn for FireWire.
For more information about FireWire, iLink, Decks and Computers, visit contact the Digistor Technical Support Team.