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Dual Firewire 800

Porsche0911

Porsche0911

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 15, 2015
2
0
I recently bought a ICY Dock external storage. It comes with two Firewire 800 ports. Anyone know if I connect both Firewire 800 ports to my iMac will it increase data speed between the iMac and the ICY Dock?

iMac (24-inch Mid 2007)
2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
 
No. Firewire is a chained bus. One port is in, one port is out. Doesn't matter which way round.

If you had a second Firewire device you'd connect it to the spare port on the Icydock.
 
dual port are for daisy chaining, just like with Thunderbolt. If you want faster transport you need newer Mac with USB 3 and/or Thunderbolt. When you get to USB 3 transport speeds the read/write delay is mostly in the enclosure and the latency of the drives inside.
 
MCAsan said:
dual port are for daisy chaining, just like with Thunderbolt. If you want faster transport you need newer Mac with USB 3 and/or Thunderbolt. When you get to USB 3 transport speeds the read/write delay is mostly in the enclosure and the latency of the drives inside.
Click to expand...
Thanks saves me buying another cable.
 
MCAsan said:
When you get to USB 3 transport speeds the read/write delay is mostly in the enclosure and the latency of the drives inside.
Click to expand...

USB3 is a terrible out of control transport mechanism for disk drives, slow, but cheap. There are numerous protocol issues except for perhaps simple portable devices that don't sleep and with one device on a USB port. USB3 controllers within the enclosures typically don't meet all the USB3 specs (they are cheap and time to market critical), and some of those can cause havoc with a MAC.

Firewire may be slower on paper, but not so much in practice and a much more reliable storage transport.
 
Firewire may be slower on paper, but not so much in practice and a much more reliable storage transport.
Click to expand...

It is dying technology. Old machines may have few options. Newer Macs don't even have FW ports. Move on.
 
MCAsan said:
It is dying technology. Old machines may have few options. Newer Macs don't even have FW ports. Move on.
Click to expand...

Buy the Thunderbolt to FW adaptor. Problem solved.

Firewire was designed to replace SCSI for high bandwidth devices. It's still supported - I'm not replacing perfectly good Firewire peripherals that still work.
 
As a usable technology, firewire is far from "dead".
It still runs, and runs well.
No use to abandon firewire devices yet.

In at least one instance -- audio recording using firewire-based audio interfaces -- firewire still excels above the alternate connecting technology (USB3).
 
As a usable technology, firewire is far from "dead".
Click to expand...

Look at new Mac Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, and the various MacBooks, It seems as if Apple disagrees as FW ports are no where to be found. Like Aperture, the software still runs; but, does not make a good investment target at this late point in its life cycle. At least devices like HDs can be moved from FW enclosures to USB 3 or TB until USB-C is in wide use. Soon the only connector we will see on Macs is USB-C ports that carry a variety of protocols such as USB 3.1/3/2, TB 1/2/3, Ethernet..etc.
 
I'm going to repeat what I said above. Apple manufacture a Thunderbolt to Firewire device at a sensible price that fits the 99% of the range with a Thunderbolt port. It's far from dead.

On your basis of them removing the port, is Ethernet is dead also because they removed it from the Pro laptops? Thought not.
 
MagicBoy said:
I'm going to repeat what I said above. Apple manufacture a Thunderbolt to Firewire device at a sensible price that fits the 99% of the range with a Thunderbolt port. It's far from dead.

On your basis of them removing the port, is Ethernet is dead also because they removed it from the Pro laptops? Thought not.
Click to expand...
 
On your basis of them removing the port, is Ethernet is dead also because they removed it from the Pro laptops? Thought not.
Click to expand...

As a physical port on Macs obviously yes as the new Macbook does not need one and neither does my rMBP. As a protocol, no. It like other protocols can run on USB-C sessions of wifi. So watch the wired protocols move to USC-C sessions in the very near future. But why would someone run FW protocol on a USB-C session when there will be USB-3.1/3/2, Thunderbolt 1/2/3 protocols as alternatives? Again, any external drives can simply be moved to another enclosure with an faster interface.

Lets see how many new FW products are introduced in the nest year from major players like Seagate/LaCie, WD, HP, Epson, Brother or others. While we can have an opinion, ultimately it is their product plans and rollouts that drive this one way or the other.
 
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