USB 2.0 or Firewire??

I'm moving toward a digital darkroom and have purchased a new

computer with Windows XP and a Pentium IV 2.4GHz chip. I intend to

use an Epson 2200 printer and a Nikon scanner with this set up.

 

My question: Since the computer I bought has USB 2.0 interfaces

only, should I add a Firewire PCI card?? Or will the USB 2.0 be

adequate to run the printer and the scanner?

 

I'm no expert in this area, but my understanding is that USB 2.0 now

transfers data at speeds comparable to the Firewire interface. Is

that correct, or should in go with Firewire?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

In reality I don't think you will see a speed difference since the bottleneck is the slow printer and not the wire. That being said, here's a comparison between USB 2.0 and Firewire (executive summary: Firewire chews up less CPU resources thereby giving a better experience and throughput)

 

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/story/0,24330,3393571,00.html

I found that my Epson 2200 runs noticeably faster with Firewire than with USB 2.0, with XP Pro. I'd go for the adapter card; FireWire is useful for other things too.

If you get the Nikon LS4000/8000 it will come with a Firewire card.

Apple is about to announce Firewire2 which is doubling the speed to over 800mps.

And if you use Firewire you can get an iPod. ;-)

USB 2.0 will be more than enough to drive your printer and scanner. Note, though, that for fast speed your peripherals should also support USB 2.0 (and not just 1.0 or 1.1).

 

If you have no other reason to get Firewire, don't.

Thanks to all of the above for your very helpful answers.

Firewire works well and as stated above, uses less of the CPU. Having said that, I doubt there's a big difference right now. Few devices can get close to the throughput rates that Firewire and USB 2 claim possible.

Since most CPUs are so fast anymore the USB doesn't make a huge difference. Firewire is nice for very long data transfers but even still you won't kill your computer runnin USB 2.0. Speed wise they're about the same.

 

If you need to get a card, Adaptec i believe has a card with both USB 2.0 and firewire ports on it. 4 USB and 2 firewire or something like that. It's a good deal.

 

As far as the iPod is concerned, I'd rather spend less $$ on the non Mac version that's slightly larger but also slightly tougher.

Stick with USB 2.0 unless you have good reason to do otherwise. This will run any USB device, even the older stuff and does have about the same speed as Firewire with 2.0 devices. You should be fine on printers and scanners. Mechanics limit the speed of these devices anyway.

 

Firewire is very popular on digital camcorders. I assume this is changing and camcorders will probably have both interfaces soon.

Yikes. A lot of different answers! I would have BOTH. The current crop of 6 meg cameras use firewire. Thank God. Generic USB would take forever. As for speed, USB 2 is slightly faster (450 verses 400). As for digital camera image upload, firewire is much more popular. Also, with video, firewire is also king. With a price of $49 for the firewire card, including video editing software, why the debate????

<a href="http://it-enquirer.com/storage/firewire.html">For the interested</a>, Firewire is in its second generation and runs at 800 Mbps, <A href="http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010518S0051">outpacing USB 2.0</a>. There is nothing like a competition among standards :)