When deciding on a DVD+-RW drive, what's faster: e-ide, usb, or firewire?

Answer 1

E-IDE (obselete): 4-16.6Mbps (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/EIDE.html )
newer IDE/ATA standard:
SATA 300: 2.4Gbit/s
eSATA (External SATA): < 2.4 Gbit/s

SATA Connection is the fastest, but there are some limitations like:
- cable length (eSATA 2m, SATA 1m, compare to USB 5m, Firewire 4.5m, Firewire is DaisyChainable up to 72m)
- number of device per channel (eSATA 1 (5 with multiplier), SATA 300, USB 127, Firewire 63)
- ATA Connection needs external power cable, USB and Firewire is self powered.
- eSATA is not widely supported, although SATA is found on almost every newer computer.

USB:
Low Speed: 1.5Mbps
Full Speed: 12 Mbps
High Speed: 480 Mbps
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus )

USB is universally supported, from a desktop computer, notebook (laptop), PDA (palmtop), to some cutting edge mobile phone.

Firewire: 393.216 Mbps
Firewire 800: 786.432 Mbps
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire )

Firewire is only supported in a Macintosh computer, and some older version of iPod).

Don't rely on this though, since: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#USB_2.0_Hi-Speed_vs_FireWire

And you should know that USB and Firewire connection is optimized for portable communication, while ATA connection is only for cables inside the computer itself.

So if it's an external DVD+-RW on Windows choose USB
if it's external DVD+-RW on Mac choose USB or Firewire
if it's internal DVD+-RW choose just SATA.

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Your motherboard needs an appropriate connection to use SATA drive. You need a motherboard that have connection port that looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SATA_ports.jpg

and a cable data that looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SATA_Data_Cable.jpg
(usually included on a harddisk that supports SATA connection)

SATA Harddisk may need power supply cable that looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SATA_power_cable.jpg

Answer 2

"e-ide" : NEVER put it on the same cable with a hard drive, it slows the hard drive to a crawl.

Never run it with another drive or CD or DVD on the same cable...
there are things in the IDE standards that are broken, and will never get fixed!

Then, it is quite fast! USB 2.0 hits 480Mbits per second?
Firewire 400 does 400Mbs?
IDE can hit 320Mbs?

But, security of the physical device, from some criminal walking off with it? Priceless!

You want to run REALLY fast? 50X faster? Burn good discs, NOT 'coasters'? Get http://pclinuxos.com

Answer 3

eide