IEEE 1394a
Firewire IEEE1394a supports a maximum speed of 400mbs. IEEE1394b can support speeds of up to 3200mbs over special connections. Typically thought of as Firewire800 because of it's backwards compatibility at 800mbs.
400Mbs and 800Mbs.
FireWire has a higher transfer rate than USB, making it more suitable for video transfer and connecting external storage. USB is host-based, meaningit must have a host computer to transfer data to / from (with a few exceptions). FireWire devices can transfer data between themselves directly without the need for a computer host. FireWire supports fewer devices connected together (63, vs. 127 for USB).
i am assuming that you know what a firewire is. not all computers come with a firewire input. if your computer doesn't have a firewire IN. then you have to buy a card, which gives you the acessability to plug a firewire cable into your computer.
FireWire (technically known as an IEEE 1394 interface), introduced by Apple in 1995, allows a fast connection for peripherals such as video cameras. It is similar to a USB connector. The original version is now known as FireWire 400. FireWire 800 was introduced to give faster transfer speeds and supporting longer cable lengths without loss of signal. The connectors for the 400 and 800 versions are not interchangeable but converters are available which will allow FireWire 400 equipment to be connected to the FireWire 800 port at the slower connection speed.
IEEE 1394 is a standard for a type of connection media. Typically known as Firewire.
PCI (Peripheral Componont Interconnect)
cat5
a bunch of computers that find answers to things at super fast speeds
Cat 7 reliably supports speeds up to 600 Mbps
esata is faster, running upto 3GB/s where as FireWire400 (G1) can only run speeds of theoretical 400Mb/s and FireWire800 (G2) theoretical speeds of 800Mb/s
Fiber optics.