Thunderbolt and Firewire

I am pondering the idea of getting one of the new MacBook Pros with the Retina Display. However: they only have Thunderbolt and USB ports, and I have a Firewire interface. As far as I can see, there are no low-end Thunderbolt audio interfaces yet. Can I hook up my Firewire device to the Thunderbolt port somehow, or will I have to ditch it for a USB one?

Apple announced both a Thunderbolt to Ethernet, and Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 adaptor during WWDC. the FireWire adaptor doesn't seem to be available yet, but the ethernet version is US$29:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD463ZM/A
perhaps the FW adaptor will be the same, and with a combination of 800 to 400 adaptor it'll work?
think it's worth the effort?
(good luck if you go for it, i'm holding out for a new mac pro and retina cinema display!)

Similar Messages

Thunderbolt and Firewire Logo Startup Screen?

A few secs ago I had a Thunderbolt and Firewire logo startup screen that had them bouncing around. Any idea of what this was?

It sounds like you started the computer in target disk mode. This is a special mode that allows mounting the computer as an external FireWire or Thunderbolt hard disk to another Mac. It is accessed by holding the "T" key at boot, and exited by shutting the computer down with the power button.

Can Thunderbolt and Firewire co-exist?

The question: Are there any known problems with using an external Thunderbolt drive and occasionally switching between Thunderbolt and Firewire800 (via the TB to FW adapter)?
More detail: I'm considering the purchase of a thunderbolt external drive as a backup unit for a NAS. The plan is to use the unit mainly on a Mac with a TB port. However, it would be useful to have the option to use the Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt cable if/when access to the drive must be done using a Mac with only FW800 port.
TIA.

There should be no issues that arise from occasionally using an adapter or switching between FW and TB ports in that situation. Basically, the device is just looking for a way to send and receive a bunch of zeroes and ones. As long as you give it a way to do so, it's happy.

Thunderbolt and FireWire 800 / 400

Hey gang!
I have a 2011 MacMini and a theoretical question. I have a FW800 external drive connected to it for my TimeMachine backup. I also have a FW400 audio capture box I use from time to time.
I used to chain the drive and audio device, but that slows the FW chain to 400 speeds instead of 800. If I connect the FW800 drive directly to the Mac mini, and the FW400 audio capture box to the Mac min via the Thunderbolt-to-FW800 adaptor(via a small 800-to-400 converter plug), will that slow the whole bus down to 400, or will they work at independent speeds?
I assume the Thunderbolt and FW chips are indepent and that the would NOT slow down speeds, but I would like to hear a more technical answer to my question.
Thank you in advance.

Apple sells a Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 cable here. Connect directly to your external drive with this cable, and the FW400 audio capture box (with adapter) to the Mini's FW800 port.

Thunderbolt and FireWire combo

I know that your clock and RAM have the biggest impact, but...
Let's say I exported a full HD ProRes file out of FCP X via FCP (current settings)....and I have two drives to work with when I will be compressing that file. My system is on my internal SSD and the FireWire 800 and Thunderbolt drives are empty. Would I export that file to the FW and process the file (compressor) from there to the TB or vice versa? Any effect from the read/write, I/O?
Does it matter at all?
Just wondering...thank you.

Well, it really depends on the drive on the TB port, and if your Mac can compress/process the video as fast as the drive can store it.
But using two different drives, will make a difference.
But I guess the best solution is to store the 'scratch' file on the SSD and render to the TB drive..!
And then delete the temp file from the SSD when you are done..
Update: If you need to test your drive speed, AJA's System Test is a great little utility!

MBA, Thunderbolt and firewire

i am now the happy owner of a MBA 13" 94gb memory)...i cannot expouse how mush i love it....
but i use an 800 firewire drive foe work, i have several VM images on it and use VMware fusion.
so heres the question; on my MBP (8gb memory) running the image on the drive via firewire was nice and fast
i have tried USB to firewire...don't laugh i did...but you know the result
so, has anyone seen a FW 800 to Thunderbolt adaptor? or do i need to stump up a zillion dollars for a TB drive?
or, am i dreaming that i can do this, even though i have less memory but a much better processor??
Adam

You're right, it's just speculation, but IIRC they did actually put it up on their site (my memory could be a little hazy but I'm pretty sure they specifically listed both of them on their website back in april \ may -- meaning they listed an actual thunderbolt to GigE adapter and a thunderbolt to FW800 adapter, specifically, just like on the apple page), and now they're both gone.
Also, at all the recent trade shows they have attended, they have not displayed either product (IDF, IBC).
Here's a video from their IBC interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GBple4Ghy0
Neither product is mentioned or showed at all.
I'll try to find any Intel Developer Forum videos and see if they mention either product.
EDIT:
Found some interesting stuff --
1.) http://www.mactech.com/2011/04/11/sonnet-technologies-announces-thunderbolt-prod ucts -- Notice the picture; looks like they actually did announce the allegro adapter back at NAB (April)
2.) http://www.holdan.eu/Sonnet/Accessories/Allegro™+FW800+Thunderbolt™+Adapter#tab= description - an even better close up picture of the product that got my interest back in april
3.) And here's the Presto Thunderbolt to Gig-E: http://www.holdan.eu/Sonnet/Accessories/Presto™+Gigabit+Ethernet+Thunderbolt™+Ad apter#tab=description
Again, I'm 99% sure sonnet had these products on their website, and they're now gone.
The link from the first article (that links to sonnet's website) is also 404'd.
It sounds to me like they figured they could make more money selling you the dumb express card adapter and then have you just buy one of their current expresscard products instead of the better dongles pictured above and mentioned in the apple page (350$ solution that includes a big ugly tacky black box!) -- but once again you are 100% correct - I'm just speculating. Maybe they actually will come out with those products sometime in the future.
Here's the original announcement from Sonnet back in april -- http://www.sonnettech.com/news/pr2011/pr041111_thunderbolt.html
It has the same NAB2011 link from the mactech article that's 404 (click here to learn more section, heh!)
More Edits:
Gotta love the wayback machine!
The now missing page that was once on their site with both products cached from a few months ago:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110719230640/http://www.sonnettech.com/news/nab2011 /index.html

I need to connect my old Mac book pro to the new one to transfer files. The old one doesn't have Thunderbolt 2 and the new one doesn't have Firewire 800. Will the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter or Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter work?

I want to transfer data from my old Mac book pro to my new one using migrate. The old computer doesn't have Thunderbolt 2 and the new one doesn't have Firewire 800. Does the Thunderbolt to Firewire or the Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter work to connect them and transfer data?
Thank you!

Yes, use a Firewire cable and the FW to Tbolt adaptor.

HT201338 Can I connect a firewire 400 to firewire 800 adapter and then a firewire 800 to Thunderbolt adapter(standard Thunderbolt to firewire adapter) together to digitize video from a miniDV video camcorder?

I have a 10 year Canon MiniDV camcorder that I used to connect via firewire to digitize the data. Now my IMac only has a Thunderbolt connector and my camcorder uses the older firewire 400 standard. I would like to digitize the video into my IMac. How can I do this?

I did a little looking around and found a Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter, and then a Firewire 400 to 800 adapter, but no Thunderbolt to Firewire 400. Amazon and Apple stores had the Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 cable and Amazon had the Firewire 400 to 800 adapater.
Wherever you get the cables, ask them if it will work OK with what you want to try and do - if they don't know make sure you can return if there is a problem. I think it will because the Thunderbolt side is so much faster than what the camera can pump out to it. If it were the other way (Thunderbolt device to a Firewire computer I would expect that to fail since the Firewire could never keep up with the data rate of the incoming Thunderbolt device).
Maybe if you have a local Mac user group or a friend with an older mac with a firewire 400 port you could do it this way too?
Good luck

My thunderbolt to firewire adapter doesn't fit the firewire???

I bought the apple store "Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter" today. I'm trying to put my old iMac in Target Mode and move old files. The firewire cord doesn't fit into it??? I'm sitting here feeling pretty stupid and stumped?

Your firewire cord is the wrong size. Apple's cord is 800 port. What size is your cord?

Can I import video from a Firewire camcorder using the Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter?

I have an older camcorder that has a firewire interface. My new iMac does not have any firewire ports. Can I import video from the camcorder using a Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter or is the Thunderbold adapter only used for hard drives and displays?

Rather than an adapter, I would suggest you purchase a 4 pin to 9 pin Firewire 800 cable to run from the camera to the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter. Those FW 400 to 800 adapters frequently do not work so well for importing video in my experience.
The Firewire cables are pretty inexpensive if you get them online. For example try Monoprice.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10301&cs_id=1030104 &p_id=3541&seq=1&format=2

Has anyone been able to use an Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire to daisy chain a dozen or more FireWire drives?

Ever since I realized that I was not able to connect my FireWire daisy chain to my brand new Retina MBP there has been problems. Four months down the road, I am still unable to use my FireWire drives and have experienced terrible problems whenever I connect my FireWire daisy chain to this new Mac.
I have bought two of these adaptors from Apple now and both do the same thing. The daisy chain has been working perfectly for years with my older MBP and still does! There are no problems until I connect to the new Mac.
I have 15 various hard drives in NewerTech and DatOptics enclosures for over 22 TB. When connected to the new Mac, I would have multiple apps just hang, sometimes just Apple apps, sometimes 3rd party. I will not be able to force quit them and they will keep relauching as you can watch them in the Force Quit window. The Finder will hang and there is no relaunching it. I am having to do a force shutdown twice an hour which leaves no time for work!
After four months of this, now I am being told that Apple will buy back my Mac at full price. But I have basically lost the good part of four month’s worth of work because of constantly fighting the new Mac. This is cost me all my savings and I am about to lose a client. It certainly seems that releasing Thunderbolt1 was a huge, huge mistake.
Does anyone know of any large Fire Wire daisy chain working with Thunderbolt?
TIA,
R

Yes, my first post is all about how darn iffy the adaptors are and I have two of them to return now.
I question your answer because I am betting that four drives that are in one enclosure NOT all RAIDed together as one drive, but as four separate drives that those four drive will count as four devices. The daisy chain that I had going had eight drives in TWO quad boxes, four drives in TWO dual drives and another drive in a single enclosure. A total of five “devices” if you will, but also a total of 13 drives that were usually in this daisy chain.
Both of the Apple branded Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptors chocked BIG TIME on this and it works no problem on my older MBP. You basically can not use a new Mac when you are connected to a daisy chain like this!
Just checked the Apple website and indeed, I can get a new MBP with FireWire 800, just not with the Retina display! I wish that I would have known this five months ago before this all started!

Apple no longer making thunderbolt to firewire adapter!

I just visited an apple store today to be told that Apple are no longer making the thunderbolt to firewire adapter which was meant to be released this month (July). Calling Apple customer support also confirmed this. It is also no longer mentioned as a option, when ordering a new MBP retina on the Apple online store.
As I've just purchased a new MBP retina for portable video editing, the prospect of not being able to plug in all my legacy firewire drives to the MBP is very frustrating, and I'm sure many people are in the same situation. Trying to daisy chain via a USB 3 LaCie drive to firewire did not work when tested and it's likely that any other solutions via hubs etc, will probably require mains power. For ediitng on the road via bus powered drives, firewire is suddenly not an option at present.
Many of us have gone through these transitions before as Apple pushes new and better technology forward at the expence of backwards compatibility. Thunderbolt will be great, but curently it is expensive and not widely adopted, where as firewire drives are considerbaly cheaper than thunderbolt drives and many of us have a large number of these drives being used on a daily basis.
I'm sure other manufactures will be scrabling to bring a thunderbolt to firewire adapter to the market, however the fact that Apple has stopped making it before it was even released is alarming.

Styphin wrote:
And yet, FireWire became an industry standard. Your argument is invalid.
Key word highlighted (in comparison to "has become"). As Shootist points out, it is harder and harder to find any kind of FW device out there. Hence my soon to be orphaned 11 external HDDs, 2 of which only have FW and probably be unusable when I have to replace my current Mac. The rest fortunately have USB2 too and will have to function in a slow speed crippled mode when the time comes.
Even Apple is hedging its bets, else why add two USB3 ports and the HDMI in addition to the purportedly wonderful TB?

Migration Assistant with Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter?

Hey gang-
Finally retiring my mid-2007 iMac with a new Late-2013 iMac. Yayyyy!
I've always been happy with Migration Assistant, but wanted to ask the experts if Migration Assistant will work with the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter. I'm planning on connecting the old iMac Firewire 800 port to the new iMac Thunderbolt port via the adapter. On a related note, I assume that same as always, I will need to boot the old iMac into Target Disk mode, right?
Thanks!
Dave

Of course. You can connect both iMacs with a FireWire 800 cable and a Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter without any problem. The problem would come if the old iMac has not got FireWire 800 ports, but the Mid 2007 iMac comes with one.
In order to use Migration Assistant and transfer files from another iMac through FireWire, you need to put your old iMac in Target Disk mode as you said. To do this, simply hold the T key while your old iMac is starting up until you see the FireWire icon in the display. Then you can set up your new iMac, and you will be asked to transfer your data.
If you have already set up your new iMac, use Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities) > http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html

Is there a thunderbolt to firewire adapter?

Hi,
First of all, I know there is an apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter but i'm looking for the opposite adapter.
I have a 2010 imac and I'm about to buy a MBP but the problem I see is that my imac has firewire 800 and usb 2.0 ports, whereas the new MBP have thunderbolt and usb 3.0 ports. I need a new external hard drive to work with for editing with Final Cut, but most of them have thunderbolt or usb 3.0.
- If I buy a hard drive with hunderbolt or usb 3.0 I can use it with the new MBP but not with my iMac, well yes but with usb 2.0 that is horrible to work with.
- If I buy a hard drive with firewire, which are being excluded of the market (I've made a research and for example at Western Digital website they don't offer any HD with firewire at all) I should buy the new adapter firewire to thunderbolt from apple to use it with a MBP.
The question is simple, as I see external hard drives with FireWire are being removed, and my 2010 iMac still works perfectly... do you know if there's going to be an adapter thunderbolt to FireWire that could connect a thunderbolt-external hard drive to my iMac's FireWire port??
Thanks!!

Have a look at theses drives, I understand you buy the drive with USB 3 and can then purchase a Thunderbolt adapter and a FireWire adapter. I think the drive plugs into the base unit in the photo which is the adapter. You could have the Firewire plugged into the old Mac and the Thunderbolt in the new one. Just swop the drive between computers.
I don't know what speeds the drive spins at, if it is 5400 it may be too slow for you, but that is something you can decide.
http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/external-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/backup-plu s-desk/#specs

No internet with Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter

I bought a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, and i used it to connect a Iomega drive I previously used as USB.
When running OSX, no problem.
But when i boot the computer under Windows 7 (not SP1), if the adapter is connected, then the computer says that there aren't connections avalaible. If i boot without the adapter, everything worls fine and i can connect to my WiFi connection. (I don't have an Ethernet cable plugged, so i can't says if the Ethernet connection doesn't work too)
Any suggestion? Has someone experienced this?
Many thanks in advance!

Of course. You can connect both iMacs with a FireWire 800 cable and a Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter without any problem. The problem would come if the old iMac has not got FireWire 800 ports, but the Mid 2007 iMac comes with one.
In order to use Migration Assistant and transfer files from another iMac through FireWire, you need to put your old iMac in Target Disk mode as you said. To do this, simply hold the T key while your old iMac is starting up until you see the FireWire icon in the display. Then you can set up your new iMac, and you will be asked to transfer your data.
If you have already set up your new iMac, use Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities) > http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html

Thunderbolt and Firewire

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