Some Kanguru external hard drive questions

managed to get IEEE 1394 standard blessing. It was far better than the
alternatives available at the
time, although Apple originally tried to charge vendors $1.00/port royalty
for
every device with
firewire.

Correct, this was the major issue with 1394. In old days of 1999, the bus was
considered to be IDE replacement (instead of SATA which is much younger then
1394).

It has very good (though complex) protocol, and is very good for storage -
20MB/s USB2 attachment, 27MB/s 1394 attachment of the same portable drive (the
no-name box with Oxford Semiconductor chip inside and the standard ATA Seagate
Barracuda in it).

Nevertheless, this bad policy by Apple effectively killed the thing in favour
of much more primitive USB, which is supported for free by Intel's mobo
chipsets.

and strong support, firewire seemed to be a winner. In many ways (multi-
channel throughput, error
handling, etc.) it is superior to USB protocols.

Surely. It is not oriented - in USB, you have a host and its childern. In 1394,
you have peers.

But with Apple's recent change of heart,
abandoning PowerPC for Intel, dropping firewire cables with the iPods, one
has
to wonder..

This extremely "closed" policy for Firewire prevented it from capturing the
market in early 2000ies, when there was no SATA or it was in infancy. Now it is
too late.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com

Maxim S. Shatskih wrote:
managed to get IEEE 1394 standard blessing. It was far better than the
alternatives available at the
time, although Apple originally tried to charge vendors $1.00/port royalty
for
every device with
firewire.

Correct, this was the major issue with 1394. In old days of 1999, the bus was
considered to be IDE replacement (instead of SATA which is much younger then
1394).

It has very good (though complex) protocol, and is very good for storage -
20MB/s USB2 attachment, 27MB/s 1394 attachment of the same portable drive (the
no-name box with Oxford Semiconductor chip inside and the standard ATA Seagate
Barracuda in it).

Nevertheless, this bad policy by Apple effectively killed the thing in favour
of much more primitive USB, which is supported for free by Intel's mobo
chipsets.

and strong support, firewire seemed to be a winner. In many ways (multi-
channel throughput, error
handling, etc.) it is superior to USB protocols.

Surely. It is not oriented - in USB, you have a host and its childern. In 1394,
you have peers.

But with Apple's recent change of heart,
abandoning PowerPC for Intel, dropping firewire cables with the iPods, one
has
to wonder..

This extremely "closed" policy for Firewire prevented it from capturing the
market in early 2000ies, when there was no SATA or it was in infancy. Now it is
too late.


Maxim, are you really sure it's too late? Many people like firewire.
Won't the demand of people keep firewire alive? I know SATA is a threat
but TV didn't make radio obsolete.

Christine


--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com