FireWire vs. USB 2.0

Need to connect a FireWire device or a USB device and you don't have the appropriate interface on your computer?  With a combo card, you can add both port types at once:  See: FireWire & USB 2.0 PCI Card, USB Firewire CardBus Card, FireWire USB 2.0 ExpressCard 34

Question: USB 2.0 is faster than FireWire...right?
Answer: No, actually FireWire is faster than USB 2.0.

Question: Hold on...USB 2.0 is a 480 Mbps interface and FireWire is a 400 Mbps interface, how can FireWire be faster?
Answer: Raw throughput rating numbers alone don't tell the whole story, as explained below.

The throughput numbers would lead you to believe that USB 2.0 provides better performance.  But, differences in the architecture of the two interfaces have a huge impact on the actual sustained "real world" throughput.  And for those seeking high-performance, sustained throughput is what it's all about (reading and writing files to an external hard drive for example).
 
Architecture - FireWire vs. USB 2.0

• FireWire, built from the ground up for speed, uses a "Peer-to-Peer" architecture in which the peripherals are intelligent and can negotiate bus conflicts to determine which device can best control a data transfer
   

• USB 2.0 uses a "Master-Slave" architecture in which the computer handles all arbitration functions and dictates data flow to, from and between the attached peripherals (adding additional system overhead and resulting in slower, less-efficient data flow control)