These days most new Macs come with FireWire and USB connectivity options. And most peripherals are available in either flavor. So, given a choice, which should you choose? Well, several factors are involved, but helping you out is what we're here for, so let's examine the matter more closely:

What's USB and Why Should You Care?

USB is a cross-platform industry standard for connecting peripherals to computers. The standard offers a 12-MB-per-second data transfer rate--which is pretty darn fast, though not earth shattering. In theory, USB offers the ability to connect up to 127 devices to a single computer (though we've never heard of anyone actually doing this). Although USB was developed for the Wintel world, Apple has become one of its major proponents. In fact, its inclusion on the iMac helped spur the widespread acceptance of the technology.

USB is hot swappable, eliminating the need to reboot or restart your Mac when attaching a device. You attach peripherals through interconnected external hubs. When your Mac's ports fill up, just attach a hub that provides additional ports (usually four or seven), and keep on plugging in more peripherals--and hubs--as needed. With USB, there's no need for terminators, memory addresses or ID numbers with USB devices. There's only one kind of cable (USB A-B), which has different connectors at each end, so you can't connect a USB device incorrectly.

Various sorts of devices can plug into a USB port: Digital cameras, printers, Zip drives, SuperDisk drives, floppy drives, mice, keyboards, and many other peripherals.

To make matters worse, USB 2.0 is looming on the horizon. In February of 1999, Intel announced that they were creating a consortium of companies to bring USB to faster speeds, and allow it to compete with IEEE-1394 FireWire. The USB 2.0 spec is supposed to allow USB to utilize the full range of devices including cameras, drives, and other things that USB was never intended to work with. This is quite a shift from the original goal of USB, which was to provide connectivity for low- to medium-speed devices, such as we've already mentioned. Intel and its USB 2.0 consortium buddies plan to ramp up USB speeds 40 fold or more, going from 12Mbps to 480Mbps.

Despite the fact that there are still technical hurdles to leap, USB 2.0 won't be supported by motherboard chipsets--in other words, appearing on a computer near you--for probably another year, at least. Then it will be longer still until peripheral manufacturers jump aboard.

What's FireWire and Why Does it Matter?

FireWire (a.k.a. IEEE 1394) is a high-performance connection standard for personal computers and consumer electronics that makes USB look sluggish. FireWire can move large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices at transfer rates of 100, 200, and 400Mbps (12.5, 25 and 50 megabytes per second, respectively). In simpler terms, it's a heck of a lot faster than USB.

At such speeds, you could, for instance, plug in a digital camcorder and transfer video data into your Mac as a pure digital signal without going through the usual digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion process. FireWire also supports device-to-device transfers for which you'd not even need your computer. Want to transfer digital video data from your digital camera or camcorder to a digital VCR? No problem--if the manufacturers of such devices build them to take advantages of FireWire's capabilities.

Like USB, FireWire is hot pluggable; up to 63 devices (using cable lengths up to 14 feet) can be attached to a single bus and connected and disconnected as needed. FireWire cables are easy to connect because there's no need for device IDs, jumpers, DIP switches, screws, latches, or terminators.

FireWire speeds up the movement of multimedia data and large files and enables the connection of digital consumer products--including digital camcorders, digital videotapes, digital videodisks, set-top boxes, and music systems--directly to your computer. The technology allows for video capture directly from both new DV camcorders with built-in FireWire ports, and from older analog-only equipment using A/V to FireWire converters.

FireWire was developed with streaming digital media in mind. The technology allows for isochronous transport, meaning that any two devices on the bus can have guaranteed bandwidth through which to pass data.

Besides the aforementioned products, you can also get FireWire-savvy scanners, storage devices, printer interface cards, A/V converters, digital audio mixers, and printers. Of course, you may not have the time, desire, or, most importantly, money to indulge in such extravagances, but, hey, it's possible.

FireWire Verses USB

While FireWire sounds like USB on steroids, the technologies serve different purposes. FireWire--a much cleaner and more advanced spec than USB--is for peripherals that need maximum bandwidth. USB is a medium bandwidth connection for peripherals such as digital still cameras, monitors, keyboards, and mice.

The crucial feature favoring FireWire is the isynchronous data feature. If you have external data drives (ZIP, SuperDisk, Orb, etc.) plugged into the same hub as your printers, scanners and other peripherals, you could have unforeseen trouble. Several ComputerUser editors have lost data when writing to external drives while printing. Though you can have up to 127 devices daisychained together, the safe thing to do is use one peripheral at a time. FireWire, on the other hand, allows your peripherals to multitask without risk of data loss.

But with USB 2.0 looming on the horizon, will FireWire wilt and fade? Not likely. Our prediction is that, even if version 2.0 does what's being promised, the two standards will peacefully coexist into the foreseeable future. It seems doubtful that USB 2.0 will encroach too much on digital video and audio territory that FireWire has slowly but surely conquered.

Why? Because FireWire can transfer data point-to-point (one device to another) while USB requires the computer to server as a go-between. In other words, moving data with USB means you have to move it from one doohickey to your computer, then transfer it from the computer to the other doohickey. FireWire can move data directly from one device to another. Plus, FireWire will soon hit speeds of 800Mbps, late this year or early in 2001. And there's speculation of speeds of up to 1.6Gbps available a year or two down the road.

With all this in mind, should you choose USB or FireWire peripherals? FireWire is superior in all other ways. All other factors being equal, the only reason to prefer USB over FireWire is price.

With all their extra pizzazz, FireWire peripherals are a bit pricier than their USB cousins. How much? Let's look at two examples: PPS Inc. makes a 4x4x24x CD-RW USB drive that costs about $300. Its closest equivalent with FireWire connectivity costs $100 more, but is 8x4x32x. VST makes an external USB 6GB hard drive that costs $370. Its external FireWire 6GB hard drive is $440.

Still, FireWire is, well, on fire. James Snider, the chairman of the 1394 Trade Association, said the standard is now "exploding" onto the worldwide electronics markets. "1394 will be available on almost 40 percent of all new PCs this year, as the PC expands its role in networking and consumer applications," he said. "All new camcorders made after 2000 will have 1394. Peripherals such as printers, scanners and hard drives are coming out with 1394 now, and digital still image systems represent a very popular application of the technology."

Contributing Editor Dennis Sellers writes for several Mac-centric publications.