So I bought a used iMac and now have Firewire 400/800 ports..

Plenty of fw400/800 drives available. Sometimes they go by the name of 1384a (400) or 1384b (800). Best ting is to find an enclosure and put in your own hd. Its sometimes cheaper and you get a better hd warranty.

GizmoDVD said:

I have tons of External HDs already (one of which I'm currently using with it for Time Machine reasons). But no Firewire 800 to Micro USB B cable?

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Nope. Due to protocol differences, such a cable is not possible. You would be limited to the slower USB speed even if it were.

I don't think Usb->Firewire cables exist or vise-versa, and if they do, they would be pointless and expensive. The speed increase from firewire is provided by having a firewire controller at both ends of the cable (computer and device). A USB output on the external HDD can only get you USB speeds, since it has a USB controller.

You can get a firewire 400 cable to connect the drive that has a firewire 400 port though and it will utilize firewire 400 speeds. Mind you that these are not huge speed increases, and perceived HDD speed is usually limited by the seek time (the time it takes the drive head to move to find the data and for the drive to spin up if it is stationary).

GizmoDVD said:

Well both my iMac and external HD have female inputs. So I would just need a FW400 to FW400 Cable. Now to even find one...

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http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10301

You probably want the 6 PIN to 6 PIN firewire cable. 6 PIN = FW400, 9 PIN = FW800.

4 PIN cables I've only seen on sony laptops. They omitted the pins which provide power.

Any updates?
Does anyone sell FireWire 800 readers anymore?

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My iMac has a FW800 port. I simply went to my local computer store and bought an external HDD that takes a FW800 cable. See signature file for more details. Then, I configured Time Machine - to use this external FW800 - HDD device. Simple and clean. And, no fussing with different internal HDDs with different cases either. I simply bought a bundled FW800/HDD solution and plugged it in. As a suggestion, visit our local computer store and see what they sell - for FW800 port connectivity.

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Rip the bare drive out of your old USB external drive, and stick it in a Firewire 800 enclosure.

OWC makes some good ones...
http://eshop.macsales.com/