I have been looking to upgrade & get firewire 400/800 enclosures for my external hard drives to utilize my macbook pros firewire 800 port, but would it be a good idea to wait a little while to see what the new thunderbolt hookup does? maybe newer enclosures will have this in addition to firewire, & just as I see how firewire 400 was the latest tech, I see it is half the price of firewire 800 enclosures, so I wonder if thunderbolt will make firewire 800 less expensive as it becomes a past technology.
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will new thunderbolt tech make firewire 800 HDD encloures come down in price?
- Thread starter Sossity
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it shouldnt
it will only kill the addon card business where utilize eSATA, USB3 or other non-mainstream interface.
it will only kill the addon card business where utilize eSATA, USB3 or other non-mainstream interface.
Doubt it. There will be even less demand for FireWire devices which means that fewer companies will keep making them, reducing the competition.
"Doubt it. There will be even less demand for FireWire devices which means that fewer companies will keep making them, reducing the competition."
You're not thinking from a "capitalistic" viewpoint.
Decreasing demand always results in lower prices. Doesn't matter if it's one or twenty suppliers, if folks aren't buying, prices will get lowered, or the product will get dropped.
If your product is priced accurately, but there's not enough demand, you're going to find it difficult to sell the stock you have.
If your product is priced higher than what the market will bear, but there's not enough demand, you'll be lucky to sell anything.
About the only exception is when a particular technology has declined almost to the point of extinction. Then, the market value of hard-to-find but needed equipment can actually increase. Think "SCSI", and the cost of finding high-speed SCSI drives today.
Prediction:
Firewire800 products _will_ drop in price, but quite to the price point at which Firewire400 products sell.
You're not thinking from a "capitalistic" viewpoint.
Decreasing demand always results in lower prices. Doesn't matter if it's one or twenty suppliers, if folks aren't buying, prices will get lowered, or the product will get dropped.
If your product is priced accurately, but there's not enough demand, you're going to find it difficult to sell the stock you have.
If your product is priced higher than what the market will bear, but there's not enough demand, you'll be lucky to sell anything.
About the only exception is when a particular technology has declined almost to the point of extinction. Then, the market value of hard-to-find but needed equipment can actually increase. Think "SCSI", and the cost of finding high-speed SCSI drives today.
Prediction:
Firewire800 products _will_ drop in price, but quite to the price point at which Firewire400 products sell.
My best hope is that ThunderBolt is a mainstream success so that all of the ThunderBolt stuff is at commodity pricing. I don't see FW800 dropping in price, in fact as manufacturers migrate to ThunderBolt, it might get harder (thus more expensive) to find FW800 stuff. I am just glad that Apple saw fit to keep the FW800 port for now so that the transition from FW800 to T-Bolt can be done over time.
Guess this is the nail-in-the-coffin for FW3200.
Guess this is the nail-in-the-coffin for FW3200.
I think Firewire will slowly have a peaceful death. It was never that popular anyways 
I've owned Macs for years and never used one Firewire device and I don't know anyone who owns a Firewire device. Also, when was the last time someone reviewed a Firewire device. OMG....
I've owned Macs for years and never used one Firewire device and I don't know anyone who owns a Firewire device. Also, when was the last time someone reviewed a Firewire device. OMG....
johnnyturbouk
macrumors 68000
im quite new to mac - gettin a MBP 8wks ago - as i desperately needed a PC
i brought 1TB goflex portable with FW800 adapter as freebie -
I use the FW800 for TM/ store movies and my itunes
i find it much faster than using the usb 2 on the same extn HDdrive
I also read that FW800 does not require direct access to CPU - as USB 1/2/3 is ltd to
I think i will stick FW800 till there some cheap thunderbolt alternatives
will save the money for a sexy Sf2000 SSD like the vertex3
i brought 1TB goflex portable with FW800 adapter as freebie -
I use the FW800 for TM/ store movies and my itunes
i find it much faster than using the usb 2 on the same extn HDdrive
I also read that FW800 does not require direct access to CPU - as USB 1/2/3 is ltd to
I think i will stick FW800 till there some cheap thunderbolt alternatives
will save the money for a sexy Sf2000 SSD like the vertex3
Promise will also be shipping their TB products in Q2. Looks like most companies will present them in Computex which is held in early June so I would look forward to it.
well... Firewire will be around for a while. Thunderbolt is great, but today's disc platter drives can only go 150MB/s MAX, and with SSD prices still not a viable option for drives over 1TB. Firewire is still apple's affordable external storage solution. Thunderbolt is NOT targeted for storage, but fast streaming, and it is going to be pricy. So, that's the main idea. USB 3.0 is fast, but it is what it is, cheap and starts to lose data at high rates with most cables out there...