FireWire 400 vs USB 3.0

I have 2 external hard rives one with FireWire400 (400 to 800 cable to make compatible)and one with USB 3.0 which would be faster? I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro I would be using them with.

https://www.google.com/search?q=firewire+400+vs+usb3+speed

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Need connector from firewire 400 to USB 2 port

got a new i-book and want to use my old ext hardrive firewire 400 for backup.
Is there a cable that connects the new i-book USB port to the firewire 400 ext hard drive so I can use the old external hard drive as backup?
Or am I screwed?

Doesn't the FireWire port on the iBook work?
Or are you mistaken about what you have? Is it a MacBook you have instead of an iBook?
If it is a 2010 Mac, it would be a MacBook, and, yes, it would not have a FireWire port.
External USB drives are fairly inexpensive. That would be the route I'd take.
The MacBook Bluetooth, USB, FireWire, RAM (MacBook) forum can be found here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1170

Power firewire 400 to usb 2.0 adapter

Hello. With a 2nd generation iPod with Firewire 400 cable. Is it possible with an adapter to connect to a new USB 2.0 cable and have ipod recognized? Specifically for Automobile stereo with cable that works fine on ipods and iphones that use this cable for connectivity.

There is no practical way to convert from Firewire data to USB data.
Is yours the one that still had the old Firewire connector on the bottom or is it a slightly later one with the Dock Connector on the bottom?
How to ID your iPod...
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1353
P.

VIDEO: capturing w/ firewire 400 and USB 2 on Final Cut

I didn't think of it at the time because it didn't make sense then and it doesn't still. I exchanged a PowerBook G4 for a new MBP and realized, too late, that it had one less firewire port. ARG.
I've heard 1) that USB 2 is just as good as firewire, 2) that its as good only if you're using a PC-based machine, and 3) that it should be avoided altogether when it comes to editing video.
Can I absolutly positively use firewire from my camera to capture video onto my USB 2 external HD without dropped frames or studdered video?
AND
If my HD is FAT formatted for my old Dell notebook, would that have an effect on the write speed when I use it with a Mac?
Also, it seems like a bad idea, but can I daisy-chain my camera and my external HD??

do not use usb for capturing video. the max data rate is about the same as firewire 400, but it doesn't offer as high of a continued transfer rate. in short, you'll lose some frames.
the cool thing about a firewire 400 port, though, is that you can daisy chain up to 8 firewire devices to that one port and not have to worry about it. i usually have about 3 or 4 external drives hooked up to each other and my firewire, and i just plug my camera into the firewire port on one of the hard drives. it works just as well as if i had plugged it into my computer.
there's really no need for an extra firewire port or firewire 800 unless you're doing a really involved, highly detailed project, like a feature film, that would require higher data rates and more storage space.

Convert Firewire 400 into USB ports

I would like to make use of the Firewire 400 port on my Macbook as additional USB(s) port. For love nor money I cannot work out what, if any, cable or adapter I need to make this happen.
All my peripherals are USB style
Many thnaks

Thanks so much for this. The second link pointed me to a US site but I am sure I can find a UK one. My problem is the connector to e.g. My external hard disk or printer or whatever is different and I am not sure how best to describe the socket in the appliance. I am inclined to say small fat USB or small thin USB or small squashed USB. I am sure you get my point.. Is there a web site I can look at which describes the ends to USB cables using more scientific language!

FIREWIRE 400 to USB 2.0 CABLE ???? I want to continue using my ISIGHT !

I havea new MacBook , has no Firewire 800 or Firewire 400 jacks.
I still want to use my isight
Help!
I cant find a cable that will allow me to still use my Isight.

Hello WHN
I havea new MacBook ...
I still want to use my isight
Help!
I cant find a cable that will allow me to still use my Isight.
As everyone is trying to tell you above, there is no way to use an external iSight on the new MacBooks that do not have Firewire ports.
If you are determined to use your external iSight, you will need to get a different Mac that meets the system requirements for the application that you want to use with your iSight.
Check the systems requirements carefuly for each application you plan to use because requirements are different from app to app. For instance, some older Macs that have Firewire are too slow or may have the wrong processor type for some of the apps that can use iSight.
EZ Jim
G5 DP 1.8GHz w/Mac OS X (10.5.6) PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11) iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9) External iSight

Firewire 400 vs USB 2.0

Hi. I bought a G-Drive external drive, and the USB 2.0 connection goes at a snail's pace. I thought that was supposed to be faster than firewire!? Or is it because Powerbook G4 does not have USB 2.0 capability?

Why not put a big new internal drive in the Powerbook, so you can have everything you want on that drive and carry it wherever you need to go without having to lug two external drives around too?
Many FireWire external drives have two Firewire ports on them, so you can daisy-chain additional FireWire devices off them. If yours doesn't, then I suggest buying a FireWire PC Card adapter, which will give you the additional FireWire port or ports you want. Either way, at least one of your drives will need to have its own power supply rather than drawing its power from the FW port — so an AC adapter for one drive is yet another thing you'll have to lug around, making a mockery of the notion that your PB is portable. To my way of thinking, this makes the case even stronger for a big internal HD. You can go as high as 250GB internally, and if you have a big enough external FireWire drive to back it up on, your life will be a heckuva lot more convenient and uncluttered than it would be in the scenario you're envisioning.

Firewire 400 camera doesn't work with 800 port on iMac

I have a firewire 400 camera that i'm using for a project and one firewire 800 slot on my iMac (Late 2009).
When I plug the camera in, nothing responds no matter what I do - tried resetting the PRAM and SMC.
Compare this to my older iMac (Late 2007) which has both firewire 800 and 400 ports. I plug it in and it pops up using the underlying Quicktime controller api on either the 800 or 400 port no problem.
So I figured after trying to install a firewire camera library (libdc1394) which I need for my project which didn't work, that it must be a hardware issue, so I took it to the Apple store. The genius at the store booted the OS (Lion) from a firewire drive via 400 to 800 cable (no external power to the f/w drive was used) and then using the spare 400 slot on the hard drive, he plugged (daisy chaining) in my camera and it loaded!
So this suggested 2 things - my OS is corrupt or my card can't read straight from my device but why a hard drive in between would change this is beyond me.
I came home and installed OS X on to an external USB hard drive and loaded up from it - so this is a fresh version of Lion, there should be no software issues.
Plug the camera in to the I/O board of the iMac but load the OS from the external USB hard drive - nothing happens, the profiler doesn't detect anything at all.
On a side note, I installed XP and Ubuntu Linux and they also can't detect it, which further suggests its the device or I/O board when interfacing directly with this camera. I've tried providing the devices with external power, daisy chaining 2 cameras, using a usb hub....nothing works.
Just for good measure, I tried to boot Lion off the external USB on my older iMac and again, it worked no problem, which to me really narrows it down to the hardware.
Can anyone work out this mystery? Driving me nuts!
I feel like perhaps the port is a bit dodgy and when the genius daisy chained it, it worked better, but no idea why.
Someone said I should get a firewire 400 to usb adaptor - I actually can't find any...do they even exist?

Maybe something in Apple's quick assist will hlp
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151

Firewire 400

Bought a beautiful MacBook 13-inch Aluminum but have 150GB of Firewire 400 external drive data. I know there is no firewire 400 to USB connection but there has to be some way to access the Firewire 400 data. Is there a hub or something else that would work? Lots of important stuff on the firewire 400. THANKS FOR HELP

Adam White wrote:
Probably the best/easiest solution is to purchase a USB2 enclosure and put the HDD into it. They are cheap and easy to find.
I thought of doing that once with a crashed external hard drive - actually an attempt to reuse the enclosure. Turns out the hard drive was fixed to the enclosure via crimped sheet metal. The enclosure might be practically unusable after it's over. In addition, the type of hard drive might need to be identified first before obtaining an enclosure. Many older external hard drives use IDE/PATA interfaces.
If it's absolutely necessary, you could probably reinstall the internal drive in a USB/FireWire combo enclosure. That should effectively add USB functionality in addition to FW.

I have an iPod G2 with a firewire 400 lead. how can I attach it to my new 13 inch Mac book Pro, is there a 400 to 800 firewire converter. USB lead wont work with the Macbook Pro. iPod used as an external drive to archive memory cards on the go.

My G2 iPod that I use as an external drive to archive memory cards on the go cannot link with my new 13" Macbook Pro cause it uses a firewire 400 lead. It will not work with a USB lead. Is there a firewire 800 ipod lead or converter available? Can any one shed some light on this please?

As far as I know, if a harddrive works with a Macpro, it should work with the Macbook: if your Macbook is low on power, plug in the AC adapter
If your Macbook has a firewire port, then it should be fine. BUt i would do somemore research first.

USB to Firewire 400

I have a harddrive that is just USB 2.0.
I need to get footage onto the drive from a Mac that has Firewire 400 ports.
Is there a cheap cord I can buy to do this.
Any links to this would be appreciated.
Thank You,
Evan Jacobs
www.anhedeniafilms.com

The Mac will also have USB ports. ALL Macs have USB ports. Well, unless this one is from like REALLY early on, like a Powermac 9600 or something...but then they wouldn't have firewire ports either.
Any Mac with firewire will have USB 2 as well.
Shane

USB B to Firewire (400 or 800)

Hi
I have a USB external hard drive which is used as my back up drive using Time Machine.
Is it possible to get a cable to connect the hard drive to either the firewire 400 or 800 port in the back of my imac?
I am trying to free up some usb ports, and don't want to have to buy a new firewire hard drive, speed isn't the priority for me, just not sure it is possible to get a cable to do the job?
Thanks

Short and to the point thanks for that.
Looks like a usb hub or new hard drive then

Sonnet Tango PCI-Express Firewire 400/USB 2.0

Had my new Mac Pro less than a week and as I didn't want to move it out from under my desk too much I fitted an extra 500Gb HD and a Sonnet Tango PCi-Express Firewire 400/USB 2.0 card before I started it up for the first time.
If I put the Mac to sleep it won't wake (I have to restart using the power button) and the status light flashes in a '3 flash then pause and repeat' way indicating failed RAM.
I've replaced the 3x 2Gb RAM sticks (as fitted by my local Apple reseller) and replaced them with the standard 3x 1Gb as shipped… No change… I've run the AHT and Memtest and everything checks out fine there. Remove the Sonnet card and the problem is gone, I've tried the card in a different slot and the problem returns… I don't have another PCI-Express card to try… Any suggestions as how to proceed? I need those FW400 ports!

I've contacted Sonnet and they've been very helpful… They tell me that I'm the first person to report a sleep issue with this card (really?) and that I need to contact the retailer that I bought it from as it must be faulty. As yet I've had no reply from the retailer and Sonnet have offered to contact their UK rep on my behalf if I don't hear anything in the next couple of days. I'll keep you posted…

USB Hi-Speed vs FireWire 400 external drive write speed comparison

Since there were a host of external hard drive questions, I thought I'd just try out my own speed test while I'm watching TV in the background.
The drives I used were a bus-powered 250 GB LaCie Little Disk USB Hi-Speed + FireWire 400, and an adapter-powered 320 GB Western Digital MyBook Home USB Hi-Speed + FireWire 400 + eSATA. I judged the speed by running Activity Monitor and checking for Disk Activity's Data written/sec. There didn't appear to be much else happening, so I thought that the average rate was an accurate indicator. I plugged them directly into my MacBook's ports (no hubs or daisy-chaining).
_LaCie Little Disk (using the USB power-sharing cable made no difference - I tried both):_
USB: 23-25 MB/sec.
FW400: 32-33 MB/sec
_Western Digital MyBook Home (7200 RPM):_
USB: steady 27 MB/sec
FW400: 32-33 MB/sec
So definitely FireWire won out, although I wasn't getting the same speeds as advertised. WD doesn't specify anything other than the interface's raw speed, and of course those are never achieved for bulk transfers due to negotiations, overhead, etc. LaCie advertises up to 41 MB/sec for FW400 and up to 34 MB/sec for USB.
I found it a little bit strange that the LaCie drive was a bit slower with USB than the WD drive, but that could have to do with the particular chipset used.
I was going to post the product page of the two drives I used, but I had one thread deleted because I posted a product webpage link without using it to answer a direct question.

Oso Grande wrote:
I love Firewire but what has really pushed it out of the home/prosumer market is the TON of cheap USB 2.0 drives available.
I just pulled out my WD Passport Essential 160 GB drive with the original FAT32 format. I'm getting about 15-19 MB/sec although that was on my second try. The first try was only 12-14 MB/sec. Strange. I thought it would have been faster. I'm wondering if FAT32 makes a difference. Reads were at about 32-35 MB/sec, although there was a huge spike at the start before settling down to about 33 MB/sec.
I forgot to mention that both drives in my first test were HFS+ formatted. The LaCie drive used Apple Partition Mapping as a backup for two PowerPC Mac backup partition and an additional swap space. The WD MyBook Home used GUID Partition Mapping. Let me give reads a try.

External Hard Drive...USB or Firewire 400

I just purchased a new iMac (I'm coming from the P.C. world) and would like to purchase an external hard drive for backup purposes. I was wondering whether to purchase a USB, Firewire, or a drive compatible with both. Which runs faster on Macs? I was looking between the following drives:
Western Digital MyBook 250GB (Combo): http://www.compusa.com/products/productinfo.asp?productcode=338216&pfp=compare&
Western Digital MyBook 250GB (USB): http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Customer-reviews-for-Western-Digital-External-Har d-Drive-WDG1U2500N/sem/rpsm/oid/145402/rpem/ccd/productDetailReview.do#tabs
LaCie 250GB (USB or Firewire versions): http://www.compusa.com/products/productinfo.asp?productcode=310799&pfp=compare&
I also read about the different chipsets, but since these are all compatible with Mac OS X, they should have the proper chipset. Any help would be appreciated.

I recommend getting an external HDD with both firewire 400 and usb2. First off firewire is faster in real work operation than usb2. Is also good to have both if you decide to take some files and hook the drive up to a PC. Alot of PCs still don't have firewire.
I like this drive from OWC. It uses the latest Seagate drive and very good chipset.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MAU4F7320G16/
lenn

FireWire 400 vs USB 3.0

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