MOTU 828 mkII - Firewire or USB 2.0?

I'd opt for the FireWire version. I have 2 FireWire 828mkIIs that I use for live recording, and they work exceptionally well, even if they are on the same FireWire line as my recording drive.

There are a few problems with using USB 2 for your main interface port.

First, USB is a master-slave topology, wherein all conflict resolution happens at the host machine. This can cause bottlenecks if you have more than one USB device on the same port.

Second, mixing USB version devices on the same bus can cause significant slowdowns. For instance, if you use the USB 2 Interface into a hub that also has a USB 1.1 compliant piece of hardware attached. The bus has to slow down to accomodate this.

FireWire, on the other hand, is a peer to peer style of topology wherein conflict resolution happens between the peripherals. There is no master to become a bottleneck.

Also, when mixing different FireWire version devices (800, 400, etc.) FireWire does a pretty good job of allowing the faster devices to speak to each other at native speed rather than slowing the entire FireWire network down. This is assuming that the faster devices are next to each other in the chain.

With all that said, you can accomplish what you want with either USB 2 or Firewire. It just depends on how you want to configure your system. But if you go USB2, dedicate the USB port to the interface. Don't put anything else on that particular bus.

I hope this helps,
-sc

PowerBook Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Of course, since the collaboration of Intel (who have always supported USB) and Apple there have been rumours that Apple may drop Firewire. Evidence for this comes from Apple themselves who have dropped FW 800 from the new intel machines and most newer generation ipods are USB only. More spanners in the works for the consumer?!

FIREWIRE!
Why would anyone want to use USB1 /2 ? it's awful and the only thing it's good for is a mouse & dongles.