Firewire converters

[GERKLEPLEX]

Hey! Can anybody out there smarter than me help me with a problem. The company I work for is in the process of buying an external DVDR/RW drive the only one I can find in our price range for a multiplatform MAC/PC is made by Que??? It is a firewire drive. This is my question: Is there a product out there that can convert a firewire connecter to a usb or serial connecter.

PS I apologize if this question is stupid but I'm a boon for Pete's sake so give me some slack!!

Woot

[Cypher]

No... if there were, you'd lose a lot of speed using it. Firewire is 400 Mbps; USB is 12 Mbps; USB 2.0 is... I dunno -- it's fast, but the technology sucks compared to Firewire (the bus only runs as fast as its slowest device, so just using a USB 1.0 mouse with it will make it horribly slow). Serial is even slower, I think.

You can get PCI Firewire (IEEE 1394) adapters relatively cheap though. It's been a long time since I've shopped for them, but I wanna say they're around the $20-$30 range.

I've got 2 firewire drives: a 52X CD-RW and a 120GB hard drive... firewire is definitely the way to go (if you've gotta have an external drive).

[LA_MERC_Onji]

heres a 2 port firewire card for $20
http://www.meritline.com/2porpcifirca.html

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

firewire cards are cheap just get one. ;)

Cypher- USB 2.0 runs at 480 Mbps and is backwards compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 1.0 USB cards are about the same price as the firweire ones.

[GERKLEPLEX]

Thanks Fellas!! You saved my A$$!!! They had already bought it and thought they were gonna have to drop alot more cash to get it to work on there "Sans Firewire" systems.

Again Thanks.

[Cypher]

Originally posted by LA_MERC_Dirge
Cypher- USB 2.0 runs at 480 Mbps and is backwards compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 1.0 USB cards are about the same price as the firweire ones.

Yea, I knew the max speed for USB 2.0 was faster than IEEE 1394... but the problem is the bus speed. If you chain 2 USB devices--say, one fast USB 2.0 device and a USB 1.1 device--the entire USB bus will have to slow down to the 1.1 speed. With IEEE 1394, each device on the chain can run at up to 400 Mbps, regardless of what else is on the bus.

My uncle is ridiculously anal when it comes to anything related to computers... so when he was shopping for an external drive, he learned all about the technologies and insisted on calling to tell me about it every time he learned something new and interesting. :rolleyes: