Stuck with USB 1 Speed but searching for a solution

Question

Hi guys
I recently purchased a reburbished iMac Flat Panel G4 800MHz 15". I did not know about it´s lack of USB 2 ports. After looking for a Firewire to USB 2 solution, which appears it doesn´t exist, i´m trying with a LAN approach.
Do any of you know if there is such thing as an Ethernet to USB 2 adapter? the idea is similar to the shared printer over LAN solution that Airport Express offers. What i need is a way to "share" external USB 2 Hard Drives with my iMac via LAN. Is this possible?
thank!
MacBook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

Answer 1

Hi!
I'm really not sure if there would be any concerns; the enclosures
use a chipset in them to help communicate with the computer and
the appropriate drivers should be in the OS X for the FW chipsets.
So, you could try it without wiping anything. Since the alternative
is to see if you can backup the contents elsewhere and then wipe
them anyway (or zero-data reformat HFS+ and start over.)
Did you see the search link above to view the probable USB via
Firewire adapters some people have tried with Macs - or hoped to
try? There are a few that looked promising, but it would involve
some trial and error.
The FireWire enclosures can be the better way to go; but not all
are created equal. Ask of the reseller what their return policy is,
if you find out later on that you can't boot your Mac from one of
these new FireWire enclosures... Not that it will happen that way;
but if it does, you would need to get a different brand enclosure
if it did not work. (Booting from an external Firewire drive with
a clone of your computer's operating system is a practical use
of an external FW drive; you can do complete backups and also
do alot of your own troubleshooting or disk maintenance on the
computer's own Hard Drive from the booted external FW unit.)
Another thought would be to sell the USB2.0 LaCie drives to
someone who owns a Mac with Intel® processors, as they
can boot (run OSX clone) from an external USB 2.0 drive;
and then buy what you need directly. Data transfer issues aside.
I have a LaCie FW 250GB Porche-design external drive; with
three partitions. One has a full clone of an older white iBookG3
I sold, just in case the current owner needs a full replacement;
and the other is a backup of a decent 10.3.9 system for iMacG4
I'm using now; and one partition is empty. Be sure any partition
schemes you employ are not too restrictive; and they must be
done while formatting the drive, so all is lost unless special
software is acquired that can allow you to partition unused free
space without wiping the entire drive to do so. I don't have this
kind of software, but it is available as shareware online.
Hopefully some of the words I say will help! Best of luck.