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Networking (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

FireWire 2 Coming Soon? 97

Posted by pudge from the oops dept.
Twirlip of the Mists writes "Looks like SmartDisk pulled a Time Canada. IT World reports, 'Several hours after announcing that it is introducing desktop hard drives that connect to Apple Computer Inc. computers using the new high-speed 800M bps (bits per second) FireWire standard, SmartDisk Corp. asked that the news be 'killed due to premature release.'" Sweet.
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FireWire 2 Coming Soon? More

FireWire 2 Coming Soon?

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  • Not Las Vegas as the report says

  • What will be updated? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kuwan ( 443684 )
    So then the question now is what will be updated to include FireWire 2? Will it be the PowerMacs? (Probably, they're due for an update), the iMacs? (my guess is no), or the notebooks (my guess is no again, they were just updated)? Looks like someone goofed up and stole Steve's thunder. Who thinks Steve's going to come down in his rage and smite this SmartDisk company?
  • It's possible that the big surprise at MacWorld everyone's expecting might be a Firewire 2 based storage unit to complement Xserv. And now that Rendevous is available, maybe it'll work with Windows networks too.
    It's a better idea than the video IPod, anyways.

    Real nerds get their music from Radio 76 [radio76.com]

    • Wow. (Score:4, Informative)

      by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @05:28PM (#5028605)
      There's so many things wrong with what you just said.

      1. It's Xserve, not Xserv.

      2. Xserve RAID, the companion storage device you speak of, has been known to have a 2Gbps Fibre Channel interface for some time now.

      3. I don't even know what you mean by throwing Rendezvous (not Rendevous) in, since that doesn't really mean anything in the context of enterprise storage; nor do I know what you mean by saying "maybe it'll work with Windows networks", since Mac OS X Server allows Windows clients to connect just fine (and connects to Windows servers just fine), so obviously, it will work fine with Windows networks, and neither the way storage connects to a server, nor Rendezvous, have anything to do with it.

      4. It's iPod, not IPod.
    • Yeah, that makes sense! So, the XServe has a standard FireWire interface, but somehow having a companion product with a different interface is going to speed it up? Good call.

      Much more significantly, If Apple ARE going to introduce FW2 on any of their machines it's going to mean NEW MOTHERBOARDS - and I'll bet you a Dollar to a Dime that FW2 won't be the only change!

  • Firewire 2 vs. SATA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HalfFlat ( 121672 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @05:18PM (#5028516)

    Would it really be that much more expensive to pop firewire control electronics on drives instead of ATA or serial ATA?

    Firewire 2 would offer enough bandwidth to support any currently available hard disk with room to spare, let alone the current crop of ATA drives. The fact that it's a powered interface, supports long cable lengths, has a small cable diameter, is chainable, etc. all seem to be compelling advantages. The command set, which IIRC is SCSI-like, I'm guessing is an improvement over ATA as well.

    I don't really expect to see firewire native drives, but it really does seem that firewire 2 offers a much better solution for connecting disks than SATA - even for internal drives. And having the same connection for internal and external devices would just make everything that much easier.

    • Re:Firewire 2 vs. SATA (Score:4, Informative)

      by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @11:05PM (#5030492)
      The Yikes! motherboards in the Blue and White G3s and early model G4s had internal FW ports on the motherboard. IIRC the Sawtooth (AGP motherboard) removed that internal port. I figured FW was going to replace ATA a couple years ago as the internal drive interface. Oh well.
    • it did look like FW could compete with ATA some years ago, but that dream is now OVER. Much more likely will be Apple pushing FW2 as a new, extreme network i/f for clustering - even Gig E can't deliver 800Mbps (and PowerMacs already have Gig E on their mobos). A FW2 hub might be significantly cheaper than a Gig E switch, and Apple have already released sw to allow IP over FW for OSX...
      • Good point, and Apple might be trying to bring back the whole easy-as-plugging-it-in networking thing they had back with Appletalk and System 7.x. I always liked those old Appletalk networks, and with FW2 interconnects they could make another such move.

        But I don't know if I'd count on an FW2 switch being cheap at all.
  • This raises the following questions:
    1. Does this mean there will be hardware updates even though the rumor mill is indicating otherwise?
    2. What are the benefits of it when most applications of FireWire do not use its full capacity now? Does than mean some cool new tech?
    I hope the answers are yes, huge, yes. We'll see tomorrow.
    • One more for the list:
      3) Will "SmartDisk Corp" ever be able to do business in this country again after an angered Steve Jobs beats the crap out of their CEO?
    • Apple has already announced that starting in Jan, 2003, all Apple hardware will only boot in OS X. To me, this means a large-scale accross-the-board upgrade for the entire Mac line. This new news only confirms that possibility. On a side note, I give the Mac hacking community three days (after people actually start to receive these things) to find a way to boot into OS 9 anyways.
      • They announced that new models introduced after Jan 1, 2003 would only boot into OS X. That doesn't mean they will update the entire line.

  • The new AppleTalk (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EccentricAnomaly ( 451326 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @05:25PM (#5028584) Homepage
    Faster Firewire + Rendezvous means now there is an easy and cheap way to set up a home network of Macs, Printers, Scanners, iPods, and whatever else Apple would like to sell.
    • While I am not knocking the daisy chainability of firewire, or its networking ability, but ethernet would still be a better way to go. Now if they made firewire devices transparent on the ethernet, it would be cool. (so your ipod is networked throughout your entire house)

    • Re:The new AppleTalk (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jerde ( 23294 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @06:38PM (#5029104) Journal
      Firewire is NOT designed to replace networking. It's a short-range peripheral connection system.

      There are a number of different media types [mindready.com] that IEEE 1394x can use. But for full-speed of 800Mbps or 1.6Gbps, only STP (short twisted-pair) or expensive multi-mode fiber can be used.

      Yes, there are experiments [apple.com] implementing IP over firewire, but nobody is advocating that it replace any kind of Ethernet solution.

      Now, on the otherhand, Rendezvous could make Ethernet replace Firewire as a way of connecting peripherals. At some point soon, rendezvous-on-a-chip will make it easy for scanner manufacturers, for example, to allow a scanner to merely be plugged in to an ethernet network and use zero-conf IP to move data.

      Think about it:

      State-of-the-art ethernet is at 1Gbps full-duplex, with very flexable (& cheap!) cabling requirements. I'm really surprised that nobody is using this signalling technology for peripherals. 1Gbps is faster than even the 800Mbps that 1394b will advertize.

      It's the complex interplay of different technology layers, and how to get them to work toegether, that makes this tricky. At the signalling level, i.e. bits on copper or glass, you've got various ethernets, usb, firewire.

      Next, how you arrange for multiple devices to share access to the copper or glass; again you've got different methods with ethernets, usb, or firewire.

      And then what protocol arranges the bits together to convey information. Firewire and USB include specifications for time-sensitive bits (isochronous) and bus management that ethernet doesn't provide... instead, in networks other protocol layers take care of device discovery and congestion etc.

      Which combination of layers is best for various applications has yet to be proven. And they're all moving targets, too!

      Once you get up around 1Gbps, the bottleneck is assembling the data to feed to the wire -- if the packets aren't made much bigger, you have to have hefty CPU power to pump that many tiny packets per second and reassemble them...

      and now I'm just rambling. :p

      - Peter
      • But for full-speed of 800Mbps or 1.6Gbps, only STP (short twisted-pair) or expensive multi-mode fiber can be used.

        For the record, multi-mode fiber optic cable isn't vert expensive any more.
      • It is a good idea just to have everything use IP. However, when HPaq gets their shitty printers out there with 0Conf, and everyone's networks grind to a halt because of the nuttiness in the code that HP churns out (consumer level stuff), then i'll just laugh.
      • The S in STP means shielded, not short. And IPv4 and IPv6 over Firewire are documented in RFCs. Also USB only provided support for isochronous in 1.2.
      • Rendezvous is one of those technologies that could really give Apple an edge over XP. I believe it is largely opensource though, so at minimum it could be used by Linux/BSD.

        The problem that Apple's face over and over again is having some cool technology that internal politics keeps from turning into a real product that is useful. Anyone remember OpenDoc? QuickdrawGX? Apple keeps trying to encourage other companies to use their technologies that differentiate Apple from the crowd. However Apple is typically the worst. Look at Appleworks. It has been nearly 3 years since OSX was at a level you could do a lot of development for. Yet Appleworks is still a horrible rushed Carbon port. And it makes use of none of the cool technologies.

        • Yet Appleworks is still a horrible rushed Carbon port. And it makes use of none of the cool technologies.


          The logical explanation is that they're rewriting it in Cocoa with all sorts of OS X goodies. (At least, that's my favorite explanation).

          • That's a great excuse. But three years? Sounds like there is Dilbert-styled politics going on. I had a friend who worked for Word Perfect just before they went to hell. The work environment totally sounded like Dilbert. I hope that whatever team is doing that at Apple isn't in that kind of situation.

            I'd love it if the new Appleworks was an Office killer and used all those cool OSX features. I have my doubts, however. That it is taking this long. . . Even a total rewrite shouldn't be that complex - especially if they are using Cocoa.

            • Even a total rewrite shouldn't be that complex - especially if they are using Cocoa


              Valid point. It's possible there are issues with Microsoft, who probably doesn't want AppleWorks to be *too* good...

      • These people seem to be doing just that. http://www.unibrain.com/1394_products/1394_network ing/firenet_mac.htm
  • SmartDisk FirePower will be demonstrated at SmartDisk's booth at MacWorld Expo in
    Las Vegas this week, the company said in its original release. With a capacity of 200G bytes, FirePower can store large files, such as those used in digital video authoring and other multimedia applications, it said.

    there's another macworld this week in vegas? they have been busy over there at apple, haven't they?

    • CES? (Score:3, Informative)

      by ZxCv ( 6138 )
      My guess is they meant SmartDisk's booth at CES (Consumer Electronics Show, IIRC), which is going on this week in Vegas.
  • ...IDC analyst Roger Kay said Monday. Kay is unimpressed with the promise of Firewire2. "I don't know what we need it for. FireWire is really fast already, and data is only as fast as your slowest link -- your PC or your modem or cable line."

    Is this for real? "Umm... faster disks, no, nobody needs faster disks." Followed by, "and 640K is plenty!"?

    Firewire2 is only as fast as ATA/100, which is already being superceded by Serial-ATA. That it can guarantee those transfers on a long-cable daisy-chain or star bus is why it's amazing. If PCI has trouble feeding it, we have a 6.4 GB/s [hypertransport.org] bus on the horizon for this summer. This spec is going to have to last at least 4 years.

    And who's implementing virtual memory over modem lines these days? What is this guy talking about?
    • The FireWire 2 specs out at 800 Mbps over copper cables like the current ones, and 3.2 Gbps over fiber optic cable. This is more than enough to compete with Serial-ATA for internal drives.
    • Sure, great. The cable taking data to your disk could run at freakin 10 Tb but the slowest link here is your hard drive. A good hard drive in a Firewire enclosure will IN NO WAY give you full saturation. ATA/100 (or 133) don't run at 100 (or 133) MB/S in real life. This certain one of the analyst's comments was relevant, because unless you jimmy up a Firewire ram drive or something equally fast and impressive, Firewire is good enough.

      • There should be a drives between the ATA/100 (or 133) and the don't.

        Sorry for the DP.
      • Maybe Stevie's next announcement is the logical next step in the digital hub: the firewire based TV recorder that also records HDTV and is designed for real high bandwidth video. . .

        OK, probably not. But one can always dream.

        For practical purposes Firewire is good enough. But it is a place that will put Apple ahead of PCs in terms of hardware, even if it is meaningless as compared to the CPU problem. Realistically the new Firewire won't start to be significant for a few years.

        • For practical purposes Firewire is good enough.

          Well, you kinda hit the nail right on the head already. FireWire was designed in part to carry standard-definition video in DV format with the DV, DVCPRO, or DVCAM codecs. These codecs compress the video from 270 Mbps down to 25 Mbps, which can easily fit inside FireWire's 400 Mbps bandwidth.

          Panasonic has a DVCPRO-HD codec that compressed HD from more than 1.3 Gbps down to 100 Mbps. While you could, in theory, do 100 Mbps isochronously over FireWire 400, it'd be a lot easier over FireWire 800.

          People who use FireWire exclusively to talk to external storage devices and iPods (like most of us, including myself) don't need FireWire 800 right now. But people who do video with it most certainly do, and the trickle-down effect will benefit the rest of us, I think.
          • Of course the same folks who are doing HDTV styled video feeds are also the ones who need a lot more processing power than the G4 offers.

            However when the 970 systems come out in late summer it should be rather good for Apple if they already have FireWire 800. (Is that what they are calling it instead of Firewire 2?) Apple might be posed to regrow into the graphics market if they have a dual 970 system for intense graphics. Hopefully Steve won't drop the ball on this one as my friends tell me a *lot* of former Mac folks are leaving due both to cost and speed.

            • Of course the same folks who are doing HDTV styled video feeds are also the ones who need a lot more processing power than the G4 offers.

              Nope. The G4 is a great machine to do either off-lining, or finishing of HD material. All you need is video I/O, and FireWire 800 will (hopefully!) provide that in spades.
              • you WOULD have a point, excepting that EVERy Tv post environment is based on SIF, and dual link SIF for HD. FW has made some inroads at the VERY bottom of the market, but SIF is just as prevalent as ever, and there are several excellent SIF implementations for the Mac. I should know, I have three of them.
                • you WOULD have a point, excepting that EVERy Tv post environment is based on SIF, and dual link SIF for HD.

                  First of all, dual-link is only necessary for 4:4:4, like from a telecine. SMPTE 292 specifies full-bandwidth 4:2:2 HD over a single coaxial connection. That's what people who do HD over SDI use.

                  But it's not exactly true that every TV environment is built on SDI. You'd be absolutely amazed how many component analog houses are still going strong.

                  And converters that go from SMPTE 259M or SMPTE 292M to FireWire are trivial and inexpensive, and require no real logic whatsoever, unlike PCI video I/O boards. The net result is better software compatibility (because your application only has to talk to FireWire over IOKit, instead of a PCI card with its own driver) and better picture quality (because you're not processing the signal in any way).
                • "First of all, dual-link is only necessary for 4:4:4, like from a telecine. SMPTE 292 specifies full-bandwidth 4:2:2 HD over a single coaxial connection. That's what people who do HD over SDI use."

                  Fair enough, we've only got one HD suite and it uses dual link - but I still think Apple's onto a loser if it's gonna try and replace SIF with FW2 - it makes no sense at all. As for there still being plenty of component facilities?? Where, China? I don't know of ANY in London.
        • the firewire based TV recorder that also records HDTV and is designed for real high bandwidth video


          That's what I've been wanting ever since Steve went to the "digital hub" strategy. Specifically, a Tivo-like box running OS X that your Mac connects to via Rendezvous and programs with a nice Cocoa app (with a web interface for non-Mac or remote users). It should use a channel guide delivered as part of .mac (which would be worth $100/year by itself) and be able to transfer video to Macs and new MPEG-enabled iPods. The profits should be more than sufficient to cover the flood of lawsuits from MPAA weasels.


          I expect this product to be available shortly after a lasting peace is established in the Middle East.

      • A good hard drive in a Firewire enclosure will IN NO WAY give you full saturation. ATA/100 (or 133) don't run at 100 (or 133) MB/S in real life

        Are you confusing Bits and Bytes? I can reliably pull 40MB/s off of a modern disk. Firewire runs at 400Mb/s. small b. Multiply by 8 and throw in a couple for protocol overhead and you've maxed the Firewire (400) bus.

        Now, add to that the fact that Firewire isn't a point-to-point link like ATA, it's a bus. Every device attached to your computer has to share the bandwidth, be it 400 or 800. So, add a video source and write it to two disks (say an OSX software disk mirror) and you're bumping up over 400Mb/s.

        Now the geek will say, "just add another firewire controller card and multiplex the writes over two busses." But Apple is creating powerful computing solutions for non-geeks.
  • Couldn't it be that the new Firewire2 will be used in a new iPod, perhaps the one that is supposed to play video? Since video is on the magnitude of gigs rather than the megs of audio, could this new Firewire standard be made purely for this new device? Or would an iPod be a hardware version of a killer app for the standard?
  • New new Macs at Macworld... Its too soon to rev any of the lines, except MAYBE an iMac price drop or speed boost. BUT...

    New Xserve and XRAID with firewire 2, 800Mbps for RAID makes sense. And those who need that much RAID can afford the new technology.

    Video iPod, unlikely. Color iPod, maybe. More likely to see something that allows us to connect our Macs full of mp3s to our stereo over Airport.

    I am hoping for an 802.11g Card with built in BlueTooth. This would allow Apple to sell BT Mice and Keyboards, and allow ALL recent Macs a cheap upgrade to BT! Also new base station.. maybe it will have a few surprises!

    Tim

    • New Xserve and XRAID with firewire 2, 800Mbps for RAID makes sense.

      XServe RAID is a Fibre Channel device, not FireWire. Fibre Channel is 2 Gbps, which is nothing to sneeze at.

      Video iPod, unlikely.

      Agreed. Video iPod is an incredibly stupid idea.

      Color iPod, maybe.

      Another stupid idea. The iPod doesn't need color.

      I am hoping for an 802.11g Card with built in BlueTooth.

      Why? The Bluetooth adapter is smaller than your thumb, costs $50, and plugs into the USB port on your monitor or keyboard. Because Bluetooth is so incredibly short-range, it doesn't need to have a big antenna like AirPort's. So there's no advantage at all to integrating it into the AirPort card.
      • a small thumb sticking out of the back of a Powerbook G4, that wont fit in cases unless you take it out, and has a high chance of being broken off. Integrated not so much for desktops (which isn't the main focus of BT, portables are) but for the laptops
        • a small thumb sticking out of the back of a Powerbook G4, that wont fit in cases unless you take it out, and has a high chance of being broken off.

          First, if you're whacking your laptop around so much that you're afraid the Bluetooth adapter would be broken off, then you've got serious lifestyle issues. Pull the damn thing out and stick it in your pocket!

          But the point was that Bluetooth + AirPort is a dumb idea. Integrating Bluetooth into laptops is a good idea. Integrating Bluetooth into monitors is a good idea. (Dumb to integrate it into G4 towers; they're rarely anywhere near the monitor and keyboard anyway.) Integrating Bluetooth into an AirPort card? Dumb.
          • Alright. Normally, I wouldn't jump into a thread and criticize a brilliant mind like you, but it's people like you that make my blood boil.

            Really, what is so "dumb" about integrating two, currently separate technologies, into one simple card? Is it the praticality in it? Is it the space saving aspect? I personally think the idea would be absolutely wonderful. Dongles suck dirty goat balls.

            Disagreement aside... just because you use (Apple) technology in a certain way, certainly does not mean the entire Apple customer spectrum uses it in the same manner.

            Then again, I don't know what's more lame, my flaming(?) you for your idiotic assertion, or the fact that I've been compelled to call you on it.
            • Really, what is so "dumb" about integrating two, currently separate technologies, into one simple card?

              Lots of things. First and most importantly, Apple doesn't make AirPort cards. They buy them from (I think) Lucent. Second, pop open an AirPort card and tell me how much space you see. Third, even if you could squeeze the electronics into the PC card form factor, you'd have massive EM interference problems, because AirPort and Bluetooth broadcast in the same frequency band. Fourth, AirPort cards are buried deep inside the computer, so there would have to be some kind of Bluetooth antenna built into the computer anyway, just like the AirPort antenna.

              I could go on, but I imagine that you're getting the idea here.

              Dongles suck dirty goat balls.

              You should be ashamed of yourself.
              • And it's not like computer components can be and are reduced in size over time... what was I thinking.
                • And it's not like computer components can be and are reduced in size over time... what was I thinking.

                  Well, actually, yeah. What were you thinking?

                  Miniaturization is not the important detail here; it's significant, but not discussion-ending. Bluetooth is neat. AirPort is neat. They don't depend on each other, at all, so there's no reason to build them into the same card. And most importantly, they actually interfere, to a very serious degree, with each other. So putting them together in the same device would be, in a word, dumb.
                  • And most importantly, they actually interfere, to a very serious degree, with each other. So putting them together in the same device would be, in a word, dumb
                    When using both on my Powerbook they don't interfere at all, and so I am interested what you mean by this in case I run into problems in the future. (I had a Windows laptop connected: via a wireless connection to the Powerbook; and a NT network via ethernet. The powerbook was connected to my mobile via Bluetooth and I was downloading pictures from the phone onto the TiBook, which was then sending them onto the network via the other PC. No interference, nothing.)

                    Personally I would prefer the bluetooth trinket to be integrated to the computer and not stick out if possible, especially as the back cover is so fragile. It doesn't have to go on to the airport card though.

                    • When using both on my Powerbook they don't interfere at all

                      The interference problems between Bluetooth and AirPort are well document (try Macintouch) although I haven't experienced them myself either. Putting the electronics on the same PCB would certainly exacerbate the problem.

                      Personally I would prefer the bluetooth trinket to be integrated to the computer and not stick out if possible, especially as the back cover is so fragile.

                      Sure, integrate away. Just don't put it on the AirPort card.
  • "Looks like SmartDisk pulled a Time Canada."

    SmartDisk didn't pull a TimeCanada, they pulled an iMac .

    Get it? Ok, maybe not. It was a bad pun. I'm sorry.
  • Does it really matter? Can an IDE drive's read/write throughput be fast enough to ever fill up that kind of bandwidth?
    • Sure, you get a big RAID-0 on the other end of that thing with multiple busses and you'll have it running at full capacity, or it could even be a way to implement an UltraMegaSuperWideFatAndLong SCSI RAID.
  • I read this:

    FireWire2 is the next generation of the Apple-invented standard. It supports data transfer at 800M bps and is backwards-compatible with computers and peripherals that support FireWire 1. It also works with USB (universal serial bus) 2.0-equipped Windows PCs.

    And had to scratch my head. Do they really mean that FireWire2 is also compatible with USB?!?

    Maybe they'll call it FIR-USB and all the devices will be round. (But will they be dog-slobber proof? :)

    • Re:FIR-USB?? (Score:3, Informative)

      by nosferatu-man ( 13652 )
      Err, I think that that (poorly written) sentence refers to the SmartDisk drive itself, not the Firewire 800 interface. In other words, the drive will have both USB2 and FW800 interfaces.

      'jfb
      • It has been speculated that Apple has been putting off USB2 support until FireWire 2 was ready, so if they are ready to put FW2 in their machines, expect USB2 support as well.

  • USB 2.0 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PeePeeSee ( 633156 )
    I seriously doubt apple will ever use USB 2.0 in any product. Its just a bad idea all together - nothing good about it in any way - Firewire 0wnz j00r b0n3z that is if your name is USB2.0. That and why would they advocate another companies high speed data transfer technology when they have their own better implementaion. Yes I know they jumped onto USB(and made it what it is today) but thats slow speed - they had nothing and intel already did the dirty work.

  • Rumor Wrapup (Score:2, Interesting)

    by williwilli ( 639147 )
    be sure to visit this page [sejus.com] to read my extensive summary of the current Macworld rumors, and updates/forecasts following the show
  • It's available now!
    • Yes, there is a FireWire 800 port on the new 17" PowerBooks.

      The 17" also has Airport Extreme (i.e. 802.11g), and the 12" is Extreme-ready.

      Time to borrow the kid's trust fund, I guess.
  • Anyone else posted via Safari yet?
  • http://www.apple.com/safari/download

    Apple's new OPEN SOURCE browser based off KHTML from KDE.

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