USB 3.0 vs Firewire 800 when it comes to music video

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USB 3.0 vs Firewire 800 when it comes to music video

This question has been asked on forums that pertain to final cut, and logic pro. But I wanted to ask it here because the people here have general knowledge of just how things work. They don't guess or encourage you to use what they are using.

I know that Firewire 800 gives a constant stream and USB gives, "burst," But those burst are VERY fast on USB 3.0. I will give you an exmaple. I have one of those Touro external portable USB drives that are 7200RPM. It's USB 3.0.

When I speed test it, KEEP IN MIND this is not even an SSD drive, it test's almost as high as my internal SSD drive. That's how fast this thing is. But not if plugged into a hub. Even if it's the only object in the hub. If I plug it into the hub it runs at a speed of a USB 2.0 5400rpm drive. If I plug it straight into the macbook, it pegs out on the black magic speed test app.

Now, while at home I have MANY external professional grade desktop drives. These are 7200RPM also. The one's I'm using now, give me the option of USB 3.0 or firewire 800.

I do edit video also. I'm feeling like when I use USB 3.0 it's much better. But I keep hearing people online say NO, yes it's faster BUT the firewire 800 is better for audio/video because it's a constant stream and not a burst.

So, I ask you who do these things. Does it really matter? Is the constant burst of USB 3.0 so fast that in all reality it doesn't matter if it's constant stream?

To those who want to know why I need to know if this is important, I am recording very serious music. I don't want to lose any samples, not even a droplet of audio while recording. This could happen back in the USB 2.0 day's which is why the pro's use the Firewire.

I'm also wondering why my USB 3.0 hub isn't as fast as plugging directly in? It is a powered hub. And it's not split amongst other USB drives. I'm talking about, when I have ONE thing plugged up that is usb 3.0

I have two hub's, the other is 2.0 but that runs off of my thunderbolt display and not off of my macbook pro.

I know people will bring up thunderbolt here. But the speed test I did, USB 3.0 seems so fast that thunderbolt would be me just throwing money out there because I'm not sure I'd benefit from thunderbolt drives because nothing really goes that fast unless you're doing 4k video or something like that.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Aug 7, 2013 1:26 PM

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Answer 1

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silvergc

Level 4

1,002 points

Aug 7, 2013 3:11 PM in response to Nagol5178

Old USB (highspeed) used a polling technique which meant that the actually sustained data rate of somewhere around 300Mb/sec. USB 3.0 adds Superspeed which has a polling mechanism that is changed to enable better streaming of data from/to a device. The effective throughput on a link will be dependent on packet payload size for each transfer and how many devices are on the same hub. The maximum effective bit rate is 80% of the full bit rate due to the 8B10b encoding used on the bus. There is also some overhead for packet headers etc. So you can expect something less than the maximum 500 MB/sec but much more than anything Firewire 800 can provide.

If Firewire 800 is fast enough, USB Superspeed will be even faster.

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Answer 2

Nagol5178 Author

Level 1

53 points

Aug 8, 2013 7:09 AM in response to silvergc

Okay, I have another question for you on this. Why is it that if I have the powered USB hub plugged up, with only ONE external drive plugged in the speed's are as slow as a usb 2.0 5400RPM drive. According tot the test I run.

But when I plug it straight into the macbook, the thing pegs out and is nearly as fast as my SSD's which are internal. Everyone say's the hub I have is a good 3.0 hub.

I understand that it splits it, if there are more USB drives plugged in the hub then it's going to be slower. But I'm saying, it's the only thing in there at one time, and it test at 54. If I plug it straight into the macbook the test does actually show 500 or near it. 54 and 500 is a big difference.

So, you're sure about this, I won't lose any samples? Because I read other forums and they seem to think unless it's a constant stream like thunderbolt or firewire, that I could lose samples. Even though USB 3.0 is faster, it doesn't stream like firewire and thunderbolt. That just streams at a certain speed. Where are USB burst at a certain speed.

The reason I ask this, yes I have firewire on the desktop but I'd like to just go ahead and make my main recording drive my portable one so I can mix and edit around on it whenever I'm not at home. Instead of transferring it from the desktop drive to the portable drive all the time.

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Answer 3

silvergc

Level 4

1,002 points

Aug 8, 2013 7:35 AM in response to Nagol5178

That is actually a very good question. One that I cannot answer. The performance of a specific hub configuration is effected by not only the computer but also the firmware in the hub itself. If I had to reliably stream data, I wouldn't choose to use an external hub unless I had verified that its performance was adequate (which in your case you have already proven that it isn't).

There is one other aspect of streaming, and that has to do with buffer space on the source device. Digital streaming is not like analog streaming. In the analog world, if you miss data, it is gone forever. In the digital world, the data can be buffered and burst out since there is a defined/discrete interval between samples contolled by the SW and capture HW. If the buffer space is large enough, and the transport media is fast enough, you only worry about the "sustained" rate of transfer. If it is fast enough, you have no problems. Of course, you have to consider the complete transfer path (including hubs and switches) to determine the available sustained data rate.

Given your experience (which could be more typical then we would like to admit) you might wish to stay with Firewire for now until the USB quirks are all worked out.

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Answer 4

Courcoul

Level 6

18,558 points

Aug 8, 2013 7:47 AM in response to Nagol5178

If absolute speed is imperative and $$$ not an issue, the best alternative is a Thunderbolt RAID array.

The Thunderbolt interface, available on MBPs from Late 2011 forward, will offer the minimum latency and bandwidth possible, far beyond even USB3's capabilities.

The RAID arrangement will do likewise with drive latency, even when using SSDs.

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Answer 5

Nagol5178 Author

Level 1

53 points

Aug 8, 2013 8:51 AM in response to Courcoul

Money is not an issue, but the isssue is portability. I carry a macbook in my messenger bag with like 3 external drives and a 256GB usb 3.0 flash drive as well as others.

At home I am plugged into a thunderbolt monitor, I have pro grade desktop hard drives. Because I've built a home studio.

BUT away from home, I like to be able to still mess with the song's mix, maybe let someone hear what I've gotten so far. So I haven't tried it yet, but I'm thinking about instead of recording on a desktop drive and copying the logic pro project to a portable drive, since I now have extremely fast USB 3.0 portable drives that are very small yet are 7200rpm and the speed test clock them in at the speed of SSD drives, I am wondering if i should just go with that as the main drive instead of the desktop version or setting up a desktop raid? I have enouggh hard drive desktop wise to set up a raid.

But a raid isn't really needed with recording music as these drives are very fast and good quality, I can get so many tracks and plug in's going or even edit video and it's extremely fast. Keep in mind my OS is and programs are being ran off the SSD which is internal.

But I can't have my projects internal that's not a good idea.

The main reason I don't want a thunderbolt external drive, is because I feel like it's over kill. I feel like if firewire can do it, and I know it can because that's what I use, and I'm asking if USB 3.0 can do it well, then why switch from firewire and pay the expensive of thunderbolt? Because it'd be giving me a lot of extra speed that isn't being put to use.

I don't want to just throw money out for no reason. So far I have yet to find any video editing I've done, or music recording I've done that firewire 800 won't handle. ANd it handles it extremely well.

BUT, the external drives, I do have a firewire 800 one, but it's a 5400RPM and clocks in a lot slower.

So I'm wondering if I can use this new USB 3.0 drive I got which is 7200RPM and clocks in at the same speed as my internal SSD's, or pretty close to it at least.

That way, the main file is on that hard drive, and I can plug it into my singer's imac, and he can open up his logic pro software and there's the project.

Because lugging around the desktop hard drive's aren't fun. You got to bring the power cable, you got to bring the firewire cord, and then the big drive. It takes up a lot of space in my messenger bag.

But I don't want to do a serious recording with a portable USB 3.0 one and then get a bunch of stuff going at once and it lose some frames on a video or samples of audio on a song. Sometimes they can be lost without even noticing it because it's so subtle.

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Answer 6

Courcoul

Level 6

18,558 points

Aug 8, 2013 9:17 AM in response to Nagol5178

https://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/TNN-SSD-240-SL.html

https://oyendigital.com/firewire-800-usb-3.0-portable-RAID.html

https://oyendigital.com/USB-3.0-portable-hard-drive.html

For instance...

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Answer 7

Nagol5178 Author

Level 1

53 points

Aug 8, 2013 9:51 AM in response to Courcoul

OH I'm well aware of portable raid's. What i'm saying is it's not needed. Because speed isn't an issue. Firewire can handle it.

It's more of a question of if a portable, or desktop for that matter usb 3.0 can handle streaming video and high quality audio being that it's burst rate, and firewire is just a straight stream.

If I needed a raid I would do so. But so far I have not needed it. I have literally no load times on anything and I have no latency what so ever. But I do use drives that are meant for this type of thing, I also have a very powerful audio interface, as well as the top of the line macbook out that is non retina, with two SSD's in it.

So raid might would speed things up more, but again it'd be speed I didn't need. Speed isn't the question. The question is losing samples due to burst vs stream.

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