Help me choose and external hdd :)

[segers909]

So, i was looking for an 2.5" external harddrive for my late 2008 uMBP. I was thinking of buying a firewire drive, as it's faster and i only have 2 usb ports.
This is btw the first time i'm buying a firewire product, so spare me a litte
My Macbook only has a Firewire 800 port. All the hard drives i seem to find have Firewire 400 ports. I don't really think i'm gonna buy a harddrive with a read/write speed higher then 40 MB/s, so i don't really need firewire 800, right? Problem is that my macbook only has a firewire 800, and unlike usb 1.1 and 2.0, it's a different kind of port (according to wikipedia). Do i need a special cable to convert firewire 400 to 800?

And one small question;
when using a 2.5" usb hard drive, i had to plug in 2 usb plugs to get sufficient power. What's the situation with firewire?

Thanks!

 

[thegoldenmackid]

You do need a special cable for the convert.

This is one example. I believe you need a six to four pin adapter.

 

[segers909]

You do need a special cable for the convert.

This is one example. I believe you need a six to four pin adapter.

Thanks for your reply. Could you also tell me how much power a firewire cable can supply? I read a laptop harddrive needs about 550 mAh..