Future of Firewire

[iMeowbot]

Do external SATA connections carry the promise of bus-powered devices, or is it always necessary to provide an external power supply? (the latter is what I have seen.)

Separate power, but controller cards are starting to include little DIN power taps.

 

[LethalWolfe]

What about the SATA connector, is it designed to take the plug/unplug abuse of a mobile external device?


Lethal

 

[iMeowbot]

What about the SATA connector, is it designed to take the plug/unplug abuse of a mobile external device?

Yes. External SATA uses a slightly different connector and is made for that. Internal SATA won't handle too much swapping very well, though.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Separate power, but controller cards are starting to include little DIN power taps.

Bah... that's what I liked about FireWire. Bus powered hard drives with no issues at all. 1 cable instead of a million proprietary.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

Firewire is important for video. I'm glad Apple has now embraced USB2 - it was stupid not having it on Macs prior to September 2003 just because they wanted us to use Firewire instead (because Apple invented FW).

iPods I can understand - PC manufacturers are not embracing Firewire to the extent that it's on every computer but USB2 is standard on every computer now so it makes sense not to hold the iPod back over that. iPods mean more to Apple than Firewire and including both adaptors is an unnessecary expense.