Firewire specs, and 400 to 800 connection

I need to connect an Epson Perfection 4870 scanner to either of my 2009 Macbook Pros.
The scanner has a conventional 400 firewire socket - how many pins?
The Macbook Pros each have an 800 firewire socket - how many pins?
Should I be looking for an adapter or a cable with 400/800 plugs?
Any help with locating the right cable/adapter would be much appreciated.

Yesterday I bought a 6 ft. Belkin FireWire 800/400 9-pin to 6-pin cable from my local Apple Store for just such purposes. (The Apple part number is TP320LL/A)

Similar Messages

What kind of firewire cable from 400 to 800?

Hello,
I have recently purchased an iMac Intel Duo. I want to use the Migration Assistant to move my environment on my PowerBook to my new iMac. Migration Assistant tells me that I need to connect the two computers using a firewire cable. The PowerBook has a firewire 800 port. The iMac has a firewire 400 port. What kind of cable do I need to purchase to make this connection work?
Oh BTW, what gives with the far newer iMac having older technology firewire port?
Thanks,
Bryan

Hi all,
Sorry for the delay. I did see the rapid-fire responses and I'm truly astonished with this forum. Thanks!
However, I must admit that I don't understand any of the answers. To Eric: Yes, I will only need to do this once, but what alternative do I have? Will Migration Assistant work over ethernet? I did not see an option for this. That would be my preference as I already have both machines on my LAN.
As to the question of whether my PowerBook has FW400: The System Profiler for Firewire only says "Maximum Speed: Up to 800 MB/sec". So I have no idea if the interface supports FW400. Isn't the physical interface (or jack) different for FW400 versus FW800? Isn't one 6-pin and the other 9-pin? If so, then I would assume that you would need a 9-pin cable jack to attach to an FW800 port, no?
Eric, you also said "so use that with the cable that you likely have for your external peripherals anyway." But what I have discovered is that the cable I have has two different jacks on each end: one connects to the Mac and the other connects to the peripheral. The peripheral jack will not plug into the iMac (nor to the PowerBook). In other words, I need a cable that has two jacks that connect to the computer side. Does anyone know the product number for that type of cable?
Thanks,
Bryan
iMac Intel Duo Mac OS X (10.4.4)

How to tell if Firewire 400 or 800? In any OS and this laptop: Toshiba Satellite A350D - BA3.

Hello.
I was wondering how someone can tell the difference between Firewire 400 and 800 in their computer and in this model of Toshiba laptop: Toshiba Satellite A350D - BA3?
If a person looked in device manager or something would it say? With Usb it says Enhanced when it is usb2 compared to usb1. I don't know what usb3 says, I don't have it.
With firewire there is large sizes and small. On my laptop it is a mini firewire and it looks like a 4-pin inside. On the toshiba.ca site, in the product specs, it only says firewire.
I am planning on buying a cord that has a large connection on one end and a small connection size at the other end. Eg: Some cables for firewire are a 4-4pin, 6-4pin, 6-6pin, 9-4pin,9-6pin,9-9pin. There are also firewire 400 to 800 adapters. I'd like to buy the right cord for an external enclosure I bought to connect to the small laptop firewire port. The enclosure is a Vantec NexStar 3, 3.5" enclosure, usb2, eSATA, Firewire a/b. It has two firewire b ports in back, but an included cord converts b-a (the a is still to big for the laptop firewire).
Does anyone know if any of the mini ports are as fast as the larger ports? Will a 9-pin firewire 800 cable converting to a mini connection go at the mini connections speed if it is only firewire 400, I don't think it can force full F800 speed?
Thanks.

Hello.
I was wondering how someone can tell the difference between Firewire 400 and 800 in their computer and in this model of Toshiba laptop: Toshiba Satellite A350D - BA3?
If a person looked in device manager or something would it say? With Usb it says Enhanced when it is usb2 compared to usb1. I don't know what usb3 says, I don't have it.
With firewire there is large sizes and small. On my laptop it is a mini firewire and it looks like a 4-pin inside. On the toshiba.ca site, in the product specs, it only says firewire.
I am planning on buying a cord that has a large connection on one end and a small connection size at the other end. Eg: Some cables for firewire are a 4-4pin, 6-4pin, 6-6pin, 9-4pin,9-6pin,9-9pin. There are also firewire 400 to 800 adapters. I'd like to buy the right cord for an external enclosure I bought to connect to the small laptop firewire port. The enclosure is a Vantec NexStar 3, 3.5" enclosure, usb2, eSATA, Firewire a/b. It has two firewire b ports in back, but an included cord converts b-a (the a is still to big for the laptop firewire).
Does anyone know if any of the mini ports are as fast as the larger ports? Will a 9-pin firewire 800 cable converting to a mini connection go at the mini connections speed if it is only firewire 400, I don't think it can force full F800 speed?
Thanks.

Mixing Firewire 800 and 400 on an iMac?

I have 2 external FW 400 drives on my late 2011 iMac. I use an 800 to 400 adapter. I've been thinking of getting a new external drive from OWC. The have both 400 and 800. The 800 case has 2 800 connectors and one 400. Does it make sense to mix? Will they all run at the slowest in the chain?
I was thinking of connecting the 800 directly to the iMac using the built-in 800 connection. Then chaining from there using the 400 connection to the other existing 400 external drives. Will I actually get 800 speed on the first drive?
Thanks

I have a mixed group of external drives, and just bought a new OWC Mercury quad interface drive.
The user manual that came with it says:
Note: If you are using FireWire 800 and add a FireWire 400 device to the chain, all devices will be reduced to FireWire 400 performance
I tested this myself, which confirmed it. I set up the following chain, with the first 2 drives connected by FW800, and with a FW400 drive either connected or not connected at the end:
HD ----800-----DRIVE1------800------DRIVE2-------400-------DRIVE3
I booted from my HD and timed the copying of a large file from DRIVE1 to DRIVE2. Although the FW400 drive was at the end of the chain and was never involved in the copying, just having it attached immediately reduced the speed of the file copy from Drive1 to Drive2. The actual speed reduction in practice was about 40%, not 50%.

"Which Firewire cable should I purchase to connect a late 2006 Intel-based iMac with a 400 port to a Mid 2010 IMac with an 800 port?"

“Which Firewire cable should I purchase to connect a late 2006 Intel-based iMac with a 400 port to a Mid 2010 IMac with an 800 port?”

To connect both iMacs, you need a FireWire 400 to 800 adapter, and a FireWire 400 cable, so you will be able to connect both Macs

I am using IMovie 11 with a new iMac. Unable to import video from a Panasonic PV-GS400 mini-DV camcorder using a Firewire IEEE 1394 400 cable connected to a Firewire 400 to 800 adapter which is then connected to a Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter.

How can I get iMovie to recognize my Panasonic PV-GS400 as a device so I can import video to my iMac? I have a FireWire IEEE 1394 400 cable connected to the camcorder. Since my new iMac has only Thunderbolt ports, I purchased a Firewire 400 to 800 adapter to connect to the cable. I also purchased a FireWire 800 to Thunderbolt adapter to connect to the computer. My camcarder is still not recognized.

I would suggest that you try a 9 pin to 4 pin Firewire Cable along with the Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter.
Those Firewire 400 to 800 adapters do not seem to work well with iMovie.
The 9 pin to 4 pin cables are available at reasonable prices here, for example.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10301&cs_id=1030104 &p_id=3541&seq=1&format=2

HT4889 Trying to migrate from Mac-mini Tiger to Mac-mini Lion and Migration Assistant cannot find my Firewire, 400 to 800, "T" disk although it show up in the new Mac's computer folder. Help

Trying to migrate from Mac-mini Tiger to Mac-mini Lion and Migration Assistant cannot find my Firewire, 400 to 800, "T" disk although it shows up in the new Mac's computer folder. It seems that Mac-mini Tiger is as it should be and the firewire cable is OK. Something about the Migration Assistant is being missed, but I have no idea what it is.
Help

Addendum: I read on a post here (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=420169) about removing some kext files in order to trick OSX into thinking that there were no FireWire ports.
I followed the instructions and removed from /System/Library/Extensions/ the following files:
IOFireWireSerialBusProtocolTransport.kext
IOFireWireAVC.kext
IOFireWireFamily.kext
IOFireWireIP.kext
IOFireWireSBP2.kext
I restarted and BAM...Snow Leopard booted crazy fast and the mouse and keyboard worked instantly.
The System Profiler says "No FireWire ports were found."
So this tells me that the FW port is probably the culprit and is messing up the installation.
So how do I hack the Mountain Lion installer and tell it to ignore the FW port, which is obviously quite dead? Or is there something I can do to the Base system that is similar?

Problem connecting Firewire device and external HD at the same time

Hi. I'm attempting to record digital audio through a Presonus Firepod A/D interface via a Firewire 400 to 800 cable connected to one of the Firewire 800 ports on a mid-2010 Mac Pro running Snow Leopard.
The problem is that if I have an external HD connected to one of the other Firewire 800 ports on the computer and powered on at the same time, the connection to the Presonus Firewire device is not recognized by the Mac Pro. Not only that, performance of the Mac Pro is affected adversely and System Profiler is unable to list any Firewire devices. If I turn the external HD off, the Presonus device is recognized and listed in System Profiler and the machine runs fine. I'm able to connect two external hard drives via separate Firewire 800 ports on the Mac Pro and both drives mount w/ no problem. It's only when I try to connect one of the external HDs and the Presonus audio device at the same time that the problem occurs.
I used this same arrangement on a PowerMac G5 running Tiger w/ no problems whatsoever. If the 400 to 800 cable is bad, I would think it wouldn't work at all, but it does when only the Presonus Firepod is connected and powered on. Any ideas?

Have done more research and apparently this is not an uncommon problem: overloading the Firewire bus when connecting an audio device along with an additional device like an external hard drive. As I understand it now, audio signal is a bandwidth hog and the solution is to get a Firewire PCIe card which will have its own independent Firewire bus and which I'll use exclusively for my audio device.

How do I cable a FW 400 and a FW 800 to my 24" Intel iMac?

This is a "duh" question, but I've only been a Mac user for a year.
I have an early 2008 24" Intel iMac with a 1 TB HD and 4 GB of RAM. I also have a 15" MBP (summer 2007 vintage).
My main computer is the iMac. I have two external HDs, a G-Tech Mini 500 GB drive with USB2 and FW 400 and a new OWT FW 800 750 GB drive. They are both used for backup--not using Time Capsule.
How do I cable the two drives together and then to the iMac? I have file sharing configured so that the MBP might be able to access the external drives as well.
Thanx, Linnie
24" Intel iMac (aluminum), 2.8 GHz, 4 MB RAM, 1 TB Hitachi 7200 rpm internal drive

Hi,
At the back of your iMac there should be two firewire ports, one 400 and one 800. If you are trying to cable the two drives together and use a single wire to connect to your iMac, I don't think it is possible, instead connect each HD's individually to your iMac's two ports.
In iMac, if file sharing is turned on you can access these HD's from your MBP. If for some reason these two drives don't show up in MBP's Finder, from MBP, connect to your iMac from Finder's "Go" menu item "Connect to Server...", then choose those two drives, one at a time.

If I move from Firewire 400 to 800 will download speed of video increase?

Hi,
I have just upgraded from a MacMini (which had firewire 400) to a new iMac which only has firewire 800. I have a 3 year old JVC digital camcorder (GR-D340EK) with ilink out and previously used a Belkin cable to connect to my Macmini. My question is if I now purchase an ilink to FW800 cable for the iMac will the video download at twice the rate or am I just as well to purchase a cheaper FW 400 to 800 adapter, which I understand would only give me FW400 speeds (and could be used for other devices too)?
Any advice guys?
Regards
Shakey

Either way, the speed of the connection will be the same. The device itself is FireWire 400, so it will not go any faster.
You can often find the cable for about the same price as the adapter. What you need, if the camera has the smaller FireWire connector, is a 9-pin to 4-pin cable, like this one
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/1394B94036/

Firewire 400 to 800 cable not working

Hi
I have just bought a third party Firewire 400 to 800 cable to connect from my Lacie drive's 800 port to the 400 port on my iBook. When I do this, the drive does not mount at all.
Does anyone know why?
best
Aldo

iBook forum this is not. Mac Pros are towers like G5 only Intel.
I would avoid LaCie, but that is me. Also, is the drive bus powered? not good. Have a good power supply?
What did you do last?
Have you run Disk Warrior?
Take the cable back and pick up new FireWire 400 case.
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/
they have cables also.

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

Firewire 400 or 800?

So, I just purchased a Samsung camcorder, but only came with USB cable. From what I read from this forum is that you need to have the firewire cable to import video from camcorder to Mac.
What exactly is the difference between Firewire 400 and Firewire 800? Is it only differed by the transfer rates? or perhaps usage?
So, what kind of firewire cable do I exactly need to connect my camcorder? It seems like there are various connector types and just don't know which one to get...
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?cid=103&cp_id=10301&cs_id=1030104&pid=328&seq=1&format=2
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?cid=103&cp_id=10301&cs_id=1030105&pid=3543&seq=1&format=2
Or just simply get the one on the apple site which costs $29?
Thanks.

The two ends of a 6-pin-to-4-pin FireWire cable look like this:
The big end (6-pin) goes into your Mac, and the small end (4-pin) generally goes into most amateur camcorders which have a FireWire connection. (Many PCs have a small, 4-pin socket instead of the larger 6-pin socket which you find on Macs.)
You don't say which Samsung camcorder you have. Generally, only camcorders which use DV tape have a FireWire connector. Camcorders which have a hard disc inside, or record onto chips, or onto something other than tape, generally have, instead, a USB connection, which is generally smaller and flatter than a FireWire socket, and often looks like this:
That will NOT carry video directly between a camcorder and iMovie, and is generally used for either (a) importing still pictures into a Mac, or (b) copying a video file from a camcorder onto a Mac, and then the video can afterwards - possibly after conversion into a different kind of format - be imported from the Mac's own hard disc into iMovie.
Note that I've never found it possible to import from a camcorder using a 9-pin-to-4-pin FireWire 800 cable ..which looks like this;
There's no advantage using FW 800 ..on a Mac which has a FireWire 800 connection.. because FireWire from a camcorder generally runs at only a quarter the possible full speed of FireWire 400 anyway, and it'll run no faster using FW800.

IPod Connector To Firewire 400 or 800 Cable?

Does such a thing exist? An iPod Dock Connector cable to either Firewire 400 or 800? I've run out of spare USB 2.0 ports on the back of my iMac, but both of my Firewire ports are still available. It would be great if I could connect my iPod Touch to one of these. Is it possible, or do iPods only work with USB 2.0 connections?

I quite agree. Three USB2.0 is extremely paltry, as many as eight would be still be sensible IMHO. I wonder if there are any iMac users without USB hubs.
I'm currently looking at one of these:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ministack/
It adds a USB2.0 hub, Firewire Hub and as much external storage as you need (Time Machine etc). Many of these will sit nicely on the iMac's plinth beneath the screen.
mrtotes

LaCie External Harddrive suddenly won't mount via Firewire 400 or 800

My LaCie External d2 Quadra suddenly won't mount via Firewire 400 or 800, but will mount via USB 2.0.
I have:
Tested the harddrive on another computer and it works fine via firewire.
Shut down and re-boot. It had no effect.
Updated all software.
Note: My MBP will not boot if the Firewire 800 cable is connected.

I've had a whole heap of strife with my two macally enclosures over FW. I've only got them working twice together, regardless of jumper settings on the harddrives. I can plug either in fine, but if I use both together, my mac shuts down and refuses to boot. One drive is bus powered, the other is powered via the mains
I wish you luck

Firewire specs, and 400 to 800 connection

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