IEEE 1394 (FireWire)

IEEE-1394 (also known as FireWire) was originally developed by Apple Computers as a flexible interconnection bus for consumer digital video and computer peripherals such as hard drives and printers.

The standard provides a guaranteed theoretical bandwidth of up to 50 Mbytes/sec (400Mbits/sec) and allows data transfer over distances of up to 4.5m for IEEE-1394a at 400Mbits/sec and 14m at 200Mbits/sec. Depending on the setup and the quality of the cabling slightly longer distances can be achieved.

In the last couple of years the next generation FireWire called IEEE-1394b has been developed which increases the data rate up to a guaranteed bandwidth of 100Mbytes/sec (800Mbits/sec) with tests showing that 83Mbytes/sec is possible in real world conditions.

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