usb to firewire

[stealthsniper96]

im thinking of buying this external enclosure to use with my macbook, but i was wondering if there was anywhere i could buy a firewire cable for it so that i could keep the usb ports open.

 

[kolax]

I heard something that most of the cheap enclosures don't include the interface that controls the read/write function, so reliability isn't good. Need someone to clarify that.

You'd be better looking for an enclosure that has an interface that offers both Firewire and USB.

Won't come too cheap, maybe pay up to $50-60 for one, not sure, but worth it.

 

[itickings]

Short answer - No.

USB and firewire are fundamentally different technologies.

Go for an enclosure with firewire instead, or one with both USB and firewire if USB is important to you. Firewire is much more suited for harddrives.

 

[stealthsniper96]

o well i dont particularly feel liek spending 60 bucks for an enclosure but ill look around. thanks.

 

[stealthsniper96]

ok how bout this one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154009

the desctription says IEEE 1394a but somewhere else it says firewire. and if anybody else has suggestions LMK but i'd like to stay under $80 and either 120 or 160 gb.

 

[kolax]

IEEE 1394a is the technical term for Firewire 400.

That is an actual hard drive rather than an enclosure on its own. But, you can always take out the 160GB hard drive and update it with a much bigger size.

 

[yippy]

Kilamite is right.

I just wanted to add one thing. That drive probably has an internal PATA interface and before you were looking at SATA. Unless you have all SATA hard drives laying around at the moment there isn't much difference in the performance between the two when in external enclosures.

So if you are going for cheap you should be able to get a Firewire+USB PATA enclosure for under $40. Just another option

 

[stealthsniper96]

ok i think ive got it down to 3 drives and i need some help deciding whitch one-

1. lacie 160gb

2. WD passport

3. WD Mybook

and on a sidenote will these 2 drives run out of the box with my MB or will they require re-formatting or sumthin like that
seagate
WD Scorpio

 

[Mr. B]

ok i think ive got it down to 3 drives and i need some help deciding whitch one-

1. lacie 160gb

2. WD passport

3. WD Mybook

and on a sidenote will these 2 drives run out of the box with my MB or will they require re-formatting or sumthin like that
seagate
WD Scorpio

I just bought the WD MyBook Pro for 140 bucks.

I recommend the pro version because you get firewire 800 this way, which is twice as fast as usb 2.0 and firewire 400.

Shop around online until you find a good price, but so far it's quite, fast, and works great.

I reformatted it with disk utility when I got it and installed mac os extended (journaled).

Highly recommended.