Where the hell are the True Firewire Hard Drives?

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
When Stevo announced forewire (millions of years ago) he trumpeted its speed and potential and harped on about firewire Hds becoming common place. In fact my G4 agp has an internal firewire port. However, all I've ever seen is IDE drives with FW bridges. Where the hell did this 400Mbs Firewire Hd revolution go?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    noahjnoahj Posts: 4,503member
    The FW revolution is hanging out with the updated Apple handheld and the iTablet. Won't you be suprised when they are introduced along with the G5 this July...





    I wish for internal FW drives as well, my computer could use them, would be nice, esp if they were bus powered, kinda like ADC for a HDD.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    I'm a little confused on the whole FW thang. If Fw can deliver data at such as rate then what is the stmbling block on FW drives? Is it that the technology doesn't exist to make the actual mechanisms? Or are apple like everyone else skimping on it becuase of cost? I think most folks would love a drive thumping data around faster than SCSI ever could.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Check the Current hardware Forum.



    <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000958"; target="_blank">Real FIREWIRE Drive exists from Panasonic/Germany</a>
  • Reply 4 of 8
    davegeedavegee Posts: 2,765member
    ATA/IDE is very very cheap to use as a device interface.



    Todays/Yesterdays Firewire does 400Mb/s or 50MB/s.



    ATA66 has a theoretical max of 66 MB/s.

    ATA100 has a theoretical max of 100 MB/s.

    ATA133 has a theoretical max of 133 MB/s.



    Typical IDE/ATA disks push out data at around 40 MB/s sustained. With some peaks but overall 40MB/s is about all they do.



    Why would anyone ever make a native FW drive when the simple fact is ATA (at the moment) is a faster technology AND the HD itself can't feed data much faster than 40MB/s anyway? The only real reason for ATA100 and ATA133 was to get bigger drive support (&gt; 120GB I think).



    I wish I knew more about drive technology so I could better understand 'why' the drives can't seem to spit out more data per second than they are now. It sure seems like they hit a wall and then just moved from speed to size.



    Now that I think about it... where FW2 could really shine is in a striped raid.



    1600Mb/s is 200MB per second (3200Mb/s is 400MB) and no matter how you look at it that's a lot of bandwidth! 6 or 7 80GB IDE drives on the chain could (if I'm looking at this right) would push (7*40MB) 280MB/s worth of data! I know those numbers can't be totally right since math with this stuff is never so cut-n-dry but you get the basic idea and I'd bet 200MB/s could be doable without too much trouble.



    Dave



    [ 06-03-2002: Message edited by: DaveGee ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 8
    cdhostagecdhostage Posts: 1,038member
    What data rate is uncompressed HDTV? Can Firewire 2 handle it?
  • Reply 6 of 8
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    [quote]Originally posted by cdhostage:

    <strong>What data rate is uncompressed HDTV? Can Firewire 2 handle it?</strong><hr></blockquote>





    Broadcast HDTV is roughly 24-35mbps so even today FW could handle it. FW2 will be icing on the cake.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    noahjnoahj Posts: 4,503member
    [quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:

    <strong>Check the Current hardware Forum.



    <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000958"; target="_blank">Real FIREWIRE Drive exists from Panasonic/Germany</a></strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yes, I saw that, but can you buy just the drive without the unit, and if so, where and how much?
  • Reply 8 of 8
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    If this is still an issue in 2004, I promise I'll do something about it. I'm currently working on the PDA TDNS, so after that I'll get started on Firewire Drive Electronics, if there is a need. Hopefully I'll be able to work out a deal with Apple in order to license their hardwriting recognition technology.



    :cool:



    - Your local hardware geek.
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