Cables..

[Smokie]

Ok a question that some techo’s might be able to answer. If external CD-Roms, HDD etc, can run with either Firewire or USB why can’t internal parts run the same way, instead of all those damn cables?

Wouldn’t it be nice just to plug one small connector on to the motherboard then to the HDD etc. Is there any technical reason why this cannot be done?

 

[[CpK]Bastid]

maybe cuz nobody's made them yet?
i dunno

 

[Zedric]

The external drives use the same cables, just inside the box. Converting IDE to Firewire or USB is slower than just running IDE. That's why computers don't have Firewire internally. And since Firewire isn't made for disk transfers it cannot be used instead of IDE. We'll have to wait for SerialATA that, I heard, will use much smaller cables. And it's faster then IDE.

 

[Reg]

I do remember seeing components on the net to run an all firewire system a few years back. The idea was dropped after some *smart* guy realized that shared bus architecture isn't reliable for critical information.

The biggest problem that would arise is that data over firewire/usb/usb2 run on shared bandwidth (actually, firewire and usb are dedicated until it reaches the internal bus). Running HDs, CD/DVD/CD-RW/DVD-RW drives, floppies, other internal devices, etc, would slow things down extrememly fast.

I can't wait for Serial ATA, which is scheduled to be released at the end of the year. With those transfer speeds, HD's would be the bottleneck.