Also another interesting tidbit. Firewire is actually an apple trademark. The connections you have on IBM-compatible motherboards and cards cannot be legally called firewire.
Also, USB 2.0 is rated at 480 MB/sec, and Firewire is rated at 400 MB/second. You would think USB 2.0 is faster, but here is a study performed by Tom's Hardware, one of the more reputable sources for information on the internet.
FireWire vs. USB 2.0 Hard Drive Performance Comparison Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:
Read Test:
- 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
- 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0
Write Test:
- 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0
- 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0