In response to the general question (which is faster, FireWire or USB), jorowi posts a follow-up video explaining that there, indeed, are FireWire 800 devices – specifically, in external hard drives of the high capacity variety. I’ve opted for an eSATA external drive, which should be fine for the time being. Still, if I had a choice between USB or FireWire for devices (generally speaking), I’d go with USB – with the exceptions to the rule being hard drives and video cameras (camcorders).

USB is seriously Universal. FireWire is… likely going to die at some point in the future. That my Sony HDR-SR1 doesn’t even come with a FireWire port is quite telling. Investing in FireWire devices isn’t advised, 400 or 800. You’d be better off getting cross-compatibility with USB connectivity on the same device (or at least thinking in the eSATA direction).

My original video:

Jorowi, showing off the LaCie Big Disk Extreme (1 Terabyte) external hard drive – which does support USB 2.0 as well as FireWire 400 and 800:

I’m really digging this YouTube video response thing.