Looking for external drive...ESATA to Firewire converter?

[Mattman84]

I'm trying to score a new external drive in all the Black Friday madness. I'll be getting my iMac over Thanksgiving and would like to use my current 250 gig drive for time machine, and get at least a 500 gig to use for whatever else. There are a lot deals floating around where I can get one for even less than $100. However, none of them have Firewire.

I pretty much require Firewire so that I can daisy chain off my other one. I'll have all the USB ports full and I would much rather use Firewire anyway.

Some drives do have ESATA connections, but is there any way to get ESATA onto an iMac? Is there any sort of ESATA to Firewire 800 converter that I could use and still daisy chain? I've been looking around and can't seem to find anything like that.

Thanks!

 

[occamsrazor]

I'm looking for the same thing, a FW800 > eSATA converter to use with a bunch of eSATA enclosures I already own. Sorry to say I haven't been able to find anything either....

 

[asiow2000]

Found a SATA to USB/Firewire400 adapter at cooldrives
look under esata stuff

http://www.cooldrives.com/satofimiad2x.html

Still looking for eSata to fire800

Hope this helps

 

[DVDshrink4mac]

Found eSATA to Firewire 800 Converter

Hey, if you're still looking for a eSATA to Firewire 800 converter, I think I might have found it:

http://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/spyderhub.html

Its called SpyderHUB. Hope this helps.

 

[pinback pro]

anybody used a SpyderHUB??? looks expensive for something I've never heard of.

 

[MCIowaRulz]

Someone who knows more then I do I'm sure will prove me wrong however, Wouldn't using a USB or Firewire connection slow things down at the read/write level?

 

[JYork23]

It would slow things down considerably, but since Apple hasn't seen fit to include eSATA connectors for us iMac users, we're stuck with our single Firewire 800 connector for video.

I'm really close to whipping out my credit card and trying that Spyder solution. The other solution mentioned (Cooldrives) only has a Firewire 400 connector which cuts the data rate in half again over 800's.

To echo pingback pro, anyone else heard/tried this Spyder solution. As mentioned, seems like a good chunk of coin for something I've never heard of before. But I'm willing to pay it if it lets me use my eSATA drive dock for editing Pro Res HD footage.

 

[tgbauer]

Another option for some iMac models

If you have the right iMac model, or are willing to give up an internal drive... There is this solution (and some home-brew versions of it) which use an adapter to convert an internal SATA port to eSATA.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac_2010_27

 

[WizzyBoom]

It would slow things down considerably

Just to be clear though, the slow down would only slow to the slowest connection speed that it is converted to, correct?

• eSATA to USB 2.0 - you'll get USB 2.0 speeds
• eSATA to Firewire 400 - you'll get Firewire 400 Speeds
• eSATA to Firewire 800 - you'll get Firewire 800 Speeds
• Firewire 400 to USB 2.0 - you'll get USB 2.0 speeds

Right?

 

[JYork23]

Just to be clear though, the slow down would only slow to the slowest connection speed that it is converted to, correct?

That is correct. Connecting eSATA to Firewire 800, for example, would still net you Firewire 800 speeds as you said.