Firewire 400 Hard Drive Speed

[DoFoT9]

It will not. My SureFire is a FireWire800/USB2.0 drive, and I use it with an 800-to-400 cable on my iMac. If the port on the computer is 400, all you'll see is 400 speeds, no matter what the drive has on it.

Yes, 800 is faster than any of it. Sure would be nice to have an expansion slot on this iMac.

hmmm, i must be confusing it with something else then. maybe if the main line is fw800, and you add a fw400 connection on the end - the beginning ones wont be effected. something like that then - i have this configuration and know that it works.

 

[lil1998]

It will not. My SureFire is a FireWire800/USB2.0 drive, and I use it with an 800-to-400 cable on my iMac. If the port on the computer is 400, all you'll see is 400 speeds, no matter what the drive has on it.

What about the other way around? As in, the computer port is 800 but the drive is 400? I have an external drive I bought when I still had a G4 but now I have an iMac. I do my backups via USB. Would I see any significant speed increase if I got a Firewire cable that would adapt to the different ports?

I don't back up daily (or even monthly...it's just whenever I remember) so currently the speed doesn't bother me too much.

 

[spinnerlys]

What about the other way around? As in, the computer port is 800 but the drive is 400? I have an external drive I bought when I still had a G4 but now I have an iMac. I do my backups via USB. Would I see any significant speed increase if I got a Firewire cable that would adapt to the different ports?

I don't back up daily (or even monthly...it's just whenever I remember) so currently the speed doesn't bother me too much.

The lowest port, wherever it is, will determine the maximum speed.
If one port is FW800 and the other port is FW400, the transfer between those two ports (connected via the appropriate cable) will be with FWW400 speeds, no matter if the faster port is on the computer or the device.