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What kind of a cable to I need for this data transfer?

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dferigmu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 3, 2004
265
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Washington, DC
I need to transfer all of my files from a 2005 15” PowerBook G4 1.5Ghz to a new 15” MacBook Pro.

I think my PowerBook has both FireWire 400 and 800 ports and the MBP has a FireWire 800 port, but I’m not sure how many pins the ports have.

My question is: what kind of a cable to I need for this?

Thanks for the help!
 
C

cawesjmu

macrumors 6502
Apr 4, 2004
382
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Richmond, VA
To expand a little bit. Firewire 800 has 9 pins and Firewire 400 has 6 pins on Macs. Since both laptops have a FW800 port, it'd be easiest to get a 9 pin to 9 pin cable.

If you wanted to have more options on connecting other peripherals, you might decide to get a 6 pin to 9 pin cable since a lot of external hard drives have 6 pin FW 400 ports and you could use this in the FW 400 port on the Powerbook. Video cameras and such might even have a 4 pin port, but you don't need to worry about that.

Here's a diagram of the different ports. Link.
 
D

dferigmu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 3, 2004
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Washington, DC
cawesjmu said:
To expand a little bit. Firewire 800 has 9 pins and Firewire 400 has 6 pins on Macs. Since both laptops have a FW800 port, it'd be easiest to get a 9 pin to 9 pin cable.

If you wanted to have more options on connecting other peripherals, you might decide to get a 6 pin to 9 pin cable since a lot of external hard drives have 6 pin FW 400 ports and you could use this in the FW 400 port on the Powerbook. Video cameras and such might even have a 4 pin port, but you don't need to worry about that.

Here's a diagram of the different ports. Link.
Click to expand...

Very helpful info...thanks a lot!!
 
Bill Gates

Bill Gates

macrumors 68030
Jun 21, 2006
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mikes70mustang said:
Use a FW800, youll be happy that you did, youll die of old age using USB or ethernet
Click to expand...
If his PowerBook has gigabit ethernet then it should be just as fast as FireWire 800 (if not faster), in theory. I don't know how it actually is in real-world performance. FireWire would still be simpler though since all that's needed is for one of the computers to be put in target-disk mode as opposed to configuring static IP's and network shares.
 
mikes70mustang

mikes70mustang

macrumors 68000
Nov 14, 2008
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Bill Gates said:
If his PowerBook has gigabit ethernet then it should be just as fast as FireWire 800 (if not faster), in theory. I don't know how it actually is in real-world performance. FireWire would still be simpler though since all that's needed is for one of the computers to be put in target-disk mode as opposed to configuring static IP's and network shares.
Click to expand...

eh, ive used both, and the ethernet thing sucks. FW800 is a sure bet.
 
gr8tfly

gr8tfly

macrumors 603
Oct 29, 2006
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Bill Gates said:
If his PowerBook has gigabit ethernet then it should be just as fast as FireWire 800 (if not faster), in theory. I don't know how it actually is in real-world performance. FireWire would still be simpler though since all that's needed is for one of the computers to be put in target-disk mode as opposed to configuring static IP's and network shares.
Click to expand...

That's just the bits/second. There's a lot more overhead in ethernet traffic.
 
D

dferigmu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 3, 2004
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Washington, DC
Target disk mode?

richardtj said:
use a firewire 800 cable and set the old mac in target disk mode, or use the built in migration assistant.
Click to expand...

I am definitely going to use a firewire cable…my next question is, what’s target disk mode and does my old powerbook have to be in it if I use migration assistant?
 
Shaduu

Shaduu

macrumors 6502a
Jan 31, 2007
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Southsea
Bill Gates said:
If his PowerBook has gigabit ethernet then it should be just as fast as FireWire 800 (if not faster), in theory. I don't know how it actually is in real-world performance. FireWire would still be simpler though since all that's needed is for one of the computers to be put in target-disk mode as opposed to configuring static IP's and network shares.
Click to expand...

Migration Assistant from PPC to Intel doesn't work via Ethernet.

No idea why, it just doesn't.
 
Consultant

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
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dferigmu said:
I am definitely going to use a firewire cable…my next question is, what’s target disk mode and does my old powerbook have to be in it if I use migration assistant?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are not good with googling?

You can get the files transferred at the apple store for free the last time I checked if you bought a Mac there.

Or pay someone to do it, here is a place in Bethesda
macupgrades.com
 
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