So i'll give you my situation and let me know what you guys would do.

I currently have my images on an external 500GB RAID 1 set up, it has both USB 2.0 and 1394 connectivity. I am putting together a new photo editing machine and am trying to decide if I should bother to spend the extra $$ to get a mobo with 1394 (about $60-70 more) or if I should just hook the raid up via USB.

USB 2.0 transfers data at 480 Mbit/s, 1394 at 393Mbit/s, so USB 2.0 is faster in that sense. However from what I understand the 1394 interface has it's own chip, therefore not using CPU resources like USB does, or at least less resources.

I am wondering about real world performance, will it be worth the extra cash to go 1394?

Thanks!