FireWire versus USB isn’t exactly the most exciting of format wars — we are talking about data cables, after all. Most people use one or the other for connecting all manner of digital paraphernalia to their PC (and more often than not, USB 2.0) but probably don’t give the underlying technology much of a though.

FireWire, pioneered by the likes of Apple and Sony, has had a bit of a rough ride. It appeared almost ubiquitously on Apple computers and Sony camcorders, and would have been familiar to early adopters of the iPod, but has since fallen from favour somewhat, with Apple downgrading many of their FireWire ports from the faster 800Mbps to slower 400Mbps standard…