Kanguru Releases First FireWire Flash Drive

hajmola points out this Mac Observer article, which starts "At long last, after years of USB having a corner on the flash drive market, Kanguru has announced its Fire Flash FireWire flash drive line. With capacities ranging from 128MB to 1GB, the Fire Flash is the perfect way to carry your data with you, and since they uses FireWire, you won't be waiting around for the transfer to finish.""

USB 2.0 is faster

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, isn't USB 2.0 faster than firewire?

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[j1m+5n0w]

Uh, isn't USB 2.0 faster than firewire?

yes [wikipedia.org], at 480 mbps (as opposed to 400mbps for firewire [wikipedia.org]).

-jim

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[LincolnQ]

Well, of course, if you read the parent's Wikipedia link you notice that FireWire 800 exists, which is 786.432 mbps.

Yay.

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[j1m+5n0w]

True (though it uses a different, backwards compatible, 9 pin connector). Alas, the flash drive's specifications list its maximum speed as 400mbps.

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[GoRK]

Well AFAIK, the physical connector is unfortunately neither forwards nor backwards compatible between firewire 800 and firewire 400 although the electrical interface is. Therefore you can plug a firewire 800 device into a firewire 400 port and vice versa provided you have the correct cables (one with a 4 or 6 pin firewire end and another with a 9 pin firewire end)

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[bill_mcgonigle]

yes, at 480 mbps (as opposed to 400mbps for firewire).

Yes, in theory USB2 can do 480Mbps. In practice [barefeats.com] it doesn't achieve that kind of speed, it's slightly slower than Firewire 400.

When you recall that Firewire supports isochronous transfers and daisy-chaining, which USB lacks, speed isn't the only advantage.

Now if only Apple could fix the Panther Firewire stack so I could use my Firewire drive stack they way it used to work...

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[Cecil]

Clearly you haven't tried to actually use USB at those speeds.

There is no question, as far as I know, that Firewire 400 provides better throughput than USB 2.0 in a typical environment (and most non-typical ones as well). Not just better, either. Significantly better. I can attest to this personally. A file that, via USB, takes 3 seconds to copy to the hard drive in my USB2/Firewire400 enclosure, only takes about 1.5 seconds via Firewire. (for those concerned about my testing methods, yes, these are smallish files for a reason. I don't want the drive's maximum to be taken into account. As long as we're only writing to the 8MB cache, we should be fine.

Anyway, yeah. Ignore the marketing hype and look at benchmarks. USB 2.0 -- replacing the Mhz myth with the Mbps myth.

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[Tumbleweed]

Technically, but not really. USB 2.0 is 480Mbps, Firewire (IEEE1394.a) is 400, but due to latency and protocol issues, Firewire is almost always faster, often _much_ faster than USB 2.0.

That doesn't even include IEEE1394.b, which is 800Mbps. Unfortunately, these devices aren't of the newer flavour of FireWire.

You will also certainly find major speed differences in different sets of USB & FireWire chips & drivers, so you'd have to benchmark the things to find out for sure.

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[mewyn]

Not only that, but take a look at your CPU usage during bulk transfers. On my 1.25GHz PowerBook, I see 25% CPU usage on bulk transfers with USB 2.0 while i see < 5% CPU usage with FireWire. This is on the same drive, same hardware.

Also, I have noticed that transfers take about 25% more time when I use USB over FireWire.

Now, about this little device, I myself, being a heavy FireWire advocate do not see a major use for it. In a flash drive, I want the ability to use it everywhere, and many machines I

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[2nd Post!]

No [usb-ware.com], though as another helpful poster has linked, USB 2.0 is specced higher than Firewire.

Is a Volvo S60 faster than a Ford Expedition? Well, it depends on usage right? Freeway? Off road? In a river?

But in usage tests, Firewire is faster. Feel free to buy USB2, of course, but you're only cheating yourself in most situations!

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[Methuseus]

How exactly are you cheating yourself? USB 2.0 is more ubiquitous than Firewire, and is fast enough for most things. It's still a case of deciding what you need the most, speed or interoperability with many machines, as well as the fact that most Firewire devices I have seen are more expensive than USB 2.0.

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[2nd Post!]

Uh, you really don't know?

Your points are not the parent AC's points. His was "USB2 is faster than Firewire" and your points are "USB2 is more ubiquitous and fast enough."

If you use the parent AC's belief that USB2 is faster than Firewire and purchase accordingly, you will be disappointed because in fact Firewire is faster.

If you buy using your points, that USB2 is more ubiquitous and fast enough then of course you won't be disappointed because it's true.

I've enjoyed a nice healthy 16mb/s from my iPod,

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[jerde]

I've enjoyed a nice healthy 16mb/s from my iPod[...]

Man, 16 millibits per second? That would take YEARS to transfer one song! Poor guy. :p

(This post brought to you by the Association for the Correct Capitalization of Abbreviations)

Re:USB 2.0 is faster

[Methuseus]

You are absolutely right. For camcorders I really think Firewire is best, personally. The iPod, well, I personally don't like the design, but the speed you get probably *is* faster than USB 2.0 can handle (not sure if you mean MB or Mb, or another unit entirely). The hard drive, because of the bus methods between USB and Firewire, I would expect Firewire to be faster.

And yes, my main points were that USB 2.0 is pretty fast and is ubiquitous. I do, however, think Firewire is usually faster. Yes, once in a g

Only if you buy the right flash card

[Jahf]

Often the less expensive flash cards can only write at a very slow speed. Most times even with a decent flash card it won't exceed USB2 speeds.

Having a Firewire option is great for people who don't have alot of USB2 connectors but have Firewire. Doesn't seem like a huge market though.

Re:Only if you buy the right flash card

[DLWormwood]

Having a Firewire option is great for people who don't have alot of USB2 connectors but have Firewire. Doesn't seem like a huge market though.

I'd have to agree here. I'm a big Mac user, but FireWire's design is biased towards continuous data streaming (for like audio and video), while USB 2.0 (or even 1.1) is good enough for random access flash media. Since a big use for the keychains is to help move files between machines (even between PCs and Macs, if you're careful), the poor deployment for IEEE 1394 i

The Catch

[MBCook]

That's nice and all (I prefer FireWire over USB myself), but it would be useless to me. The problem is powering the thing. Sure, 6 pin firewire ports are powered. But what about me? My computer has a 4 pin port (which I'm not happy about). So how do I use it? There is no power from the port. There is no plug on the device for a way to plug it into a USB or PS/2 port to get power. The only way I can think of is a firewire Y cable sort of thing I have. You plug the device needing power in one end, the computer in another, and then you plug the third end into a wallwart (not unlike the iPod's one). So much for portable.

So as nice as this is, it's not for everyone. USB really is superior for this task because of this (IMHO). I have never seen or heard of an unpowered USB port. And if such a thing exists, I don't think it is up to spec because (unlike FW) I think that all USB ports are require to be able to power something (not pass-though ports though).

Still, neat to see. Now if we could just lose the 4 pin FW ports. The connectors are bad enough on their own. Redesign it, and and power to it.

Re:The Catch

[MaxQuordlepleen]

I have never seen or heard of an unpowered USB port.

Funny you should mention this .. I was testing a USB key I bought for my wife, when I plugged it into the USB port on the back of my Mac's keyboard, I got an error informing me that the device was on an unpowered port.

Re:The Catch

[AndyBusch]

Ah, but that is an unpowered *hub*. No rules regarding that. The parent is referring specifically to what comes out the back/side/front of the computer.

Re:The Catch

[MBCook]

Exactly. While plugging it into a keyboard or something might not work, I could always unplug a printer or something and I'd be set. Not only that, but many computers these days (at least on the PC) come with like 6 USB ports on the back of the computer alone. There is almost always a powered port.

Also, to the grandpart of this post, did the USB drive work plugged into the keyboard? It may have been an unpowered port, but I wouldn't be suprised if there was enough power to run the USB key.

Re:The Catch

[OldMiner]

I'm afraid you're doing what most users do. You're relaying the error message you thought you saw, and not the actual error message.

USB has negotiation built into it. Initially, a device gets a small amount of power, then it negotiates for more. If it requires more power than is available on the hub, it won't get it. The hub inside standard Mac keyboards doesn't have much power, so some flash drives won't work on it. I've used flash drives that worked on a mac keyboard and some that don't.

So your

Re:The Catch

[rkrabath]

I've tried my key drive on 3 different macs(iMac G3, iMac G4, eMac). All the keybord ports were powered. The front ports on an eMachine i've tried said it wouldn't work. But it did...

Re:The Catch

[MarsDefenseMinister]

So, you buy a computer with an insufficient FireWire port, and then claim that the drive is broken? The real problem is your port. You can get an expander card and fix the problem. The drive is fine, your ports are not.

Re:The Catch

[MBCook]

I wasn't after the firewire port, it was just included. And it is a laptop, which is probably why it's the 4 pin and not a 6 pin (although there is plenty of room for the 6 pin version). But my point was that I can take my USB key drive up to any computer and it will work in the port. Not only do many computers not have FireWire ports, but some that do have the 4 pin version and the drive won't work there.

For a little drive you can take anywhere and use on any computer, USB is simply superior to FireWire.

The Problem

[2nd Post!]

Why do you have a computer with a 4 pin Firewire port?

You could have chosen one with 6 pin, too.

Re:The Problem

[Kris_J]

My Fujitsu Windows laptop has a single 4-pin firewire port. Can't say I had much choice in that. To get this new device working I would have to buy a powered firewire hub (such as the renamed Hubzilla, whatever it's called now) or a PCMCIA card something like this [tigerdirect.com] which appears to have a 6-pin port that's either powered through the PCMCIA port or via a PS/2 port tap that's listed in the box contents.

I'd say that this was all way too clumsy for anyone to do, but the week before last I bought a USB2 hub spe

Re:The Problem

[GoRK]

I have been eyeing the USB VGA adapters, but could not find a good source for them in the US. I also had never found anyone who actually used one firsthand. Can you give me any advice on how it works/where to buy it? I'm looking to add a second (informational) display to my carPC and since it's based on a mini-itx board, expansion is very limited.

Thanks!

Re:The Problem

[Kris_J]

Dynamism [dynamism.com] sourced mine. US$159 included shipping to Australia.

The product is okay. I'm using it at the moment because it works under XP SP2 and my Margi PCMCIA adapter does not. Screen updates are quite slow at 1024x768x16bit (the highest res/colours it does). When I say slow, I mean that you can see it drawing down the screen, at least on my laptop with the hookup described above. (There may be a driver problem, because areas of flat colour I would expect to be filled in hardware are visibly filled lin

Re:The Problem

[jeif1k]

Why do you have a computer with a 4 pin Firewire port? You could have chosen one with 6 pin, too.

But why would he have wanted to? He doesn't want Firewire in the first place, there are far more USB 2.0 devices out there than Firewire devices, USB 2.0 is faster and more widely available, and there is a much wider range of machines available that don't have 6 pin Firewire. And for the only function that most normal people use Firewire for, hooking up a camcorder, 4 pin is more than enough.

Furthermore, th

Because

[2nd Post!]

He himself prefers Firewire over USB2, at his own admission.

Oh, you mean what rational reasons would he prefer powered Firewire?

Maybe he wants an iPod. He did mention it in his post! Or maybe he HAS one?

Because Firewire is faster, as explained in multiple points?

Because Firewire does carry more power, you can have many neater gadgets (yes at battery expense) that do not require external power. iPods, hard drives, CD drives, etc.

Because he wants a camcorder?

Because he wants to chain multiple devices?

I

Re:Because

[jeif1k]

Or do you also believe people shouldn't want faster CPUs?

It's all an engineering and cost tradeoff.

But you're being silly if you think Firewire doesn't have a reason to exist. It has much better performance, sustained performance, and for stuff like video work (camcorder and hard drives) and other high performance activities, more performance is better.

Not at any cost. USB2 is fast enough for hard drives. It's also so cheap that people generally just plug each high-speed device into its own controll

Re:Because

[2nd Post!]

Of course not at ANY cost.

But USB2 is fast enough for now, until you start hitting devices that need more, and that will always happen. And then what?

You have either Firewire800, which already exists, or you hobble along with USB2 for three more years until USB3 is released. Take a broader view, man! Imagine two years ago, you only had Firewire because USB1 was too slow!

In terms of price, USB2 and Firewire is the same price in terms of production. The only reason it isn't the same price in deployment is

Re:The Catch

[Bastian]

Hey, don't blame them for 4-pin FW ports. Me, I blame all the cheap-ass PC users who push manufacturers to cut costs by any means necessary, including emasculating an otherwise far superior bus technology.

The amount power you can send over a 6-pin FireWire bus is one of its greatest assets. I've had four external FireWire hard drives daisy-chained off of one FW port without having to resort to an external power source. Granted, God Save You if you try to transfer data from two of those drives at once, b

Re:The Catch

[dchamp]

This is very true. My last 2 Dell laptops have both had 4-pin (un-powered) Firewire ports, so the nifty external firewire drive I had didn't work on the laptop unless I had external power. This is a pain, especially if you're on the go.

Some of the (few) PC's that include Firewire ports have 4-pin ports on the front where you'd be plugging in something like a little flash drive, and the powered ports on the back. This is also a pain.

IMHO firewire is great when you need high-speed transfer - like DV cameras

Re:The Catch

[jeif1k]

Still, neat to see. Now if we could just lose the 4 pin FW ports. The connectors are bad enough on their own. Redesign it, and and power to it.

FW is spec'ed to supply much more power to devices than USB. That's probably the reason why designers don't like to put powered FW ports on laptops in the first place, and that's only going to get worse as laptops get lighter and more power efficient.

Re:The Catch

[2nd Post!]

Don't you mean better as laptops get more power efficient?

The more power effecient a laptop is, the more power is available to use, the less is wasted.

What would make things worse is laptops getting
a) smaller batteries
b) less power efficient
c) more power hungry

Firewire for speed?

[Tom7]

"USB 2.0 hi-speed" is pretty fast.

Re:Firewire for speed?

[MacJedi]

"USB 2.0 hi-speed" is pretty fast.

...in Japan!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Marketing gimmick

[n1ywb]

Yeah I was going to say, isn't flash memory notoriously slow, especially for writing?

Kanguru Is Not The First

[Goo.cc]

Wiebetech had a Firewire Keychain flash firewire drive back in 2002.

Check it out:

• Firewire Keychain Review [the-gadgeteer.com]
• Firewire Keychain [macaddict.com]
• Wiebetech Announced Firewire Keychain [mactech.com]
• WiebeTECH 1GB FireWire KeyChain review [arstechnica.com]

Searching vs. waiting

[stevenbdjr]

and since they uses [sic] FireWire, you won't be waiting around for the transfer to finish.

So, instead of waiting for my USB transfer to finish, I'll spend my time trying to find a machine with firewire ports. Yeah, okay.