Before I went out and purchased a Firewire 800 hard drive I wanted to check here first if my Mac can handle it or if I was limited to Firewire 400 only. Does anyone know if a PowerMac G4 500 (Sawtooth model) is compatible with Firewire 800?
Sorta. You need to get an adapter. Or a Firewire 800 card. The first option is cheaper, but the second option is probably faster.
Is it possible to purchase a Firewire 800 hard drive (with the understanding that the speed will be cut in half on my current Mac) and then have the hard drive run at full speed when I upgrade to a G5? Or do I definitely have to have a card to run the drive no matter what?
Is it possible to purchase a Firewire 800 hard drive (with the understanding that the speed will be cut in half on my current Mac) and then have the hard drive run at full speed when I upgrade to a G5? Or do I definitely have to have a card to run the drive no matter what?
You should be able to get an adaptor that will let you plug a Firewire 800 device into a Firewire 400 port. I believe such adaptors sometimes (often?) take the form of the entire cable. In any case, be sure that I'm right about that before buying your drive.
I don't know what kind of problem halcyon is having but I think it's an isolated problem. First of all, I have a Cube 450 and I purchased a OWC Merury FW800 drive 1.5 years ago. The drive has 1 FW800 port and 2 FW400 ports. All three ports can be plugged but the rule is that the fastest speed is it's weakest link (meaning that if you have FW 800 only, it will transfer data @ FW800 spec and if you have FW400, it will transfer @ FW400 and if you have FW800 + FW400 drives like daisy-chained its transfer speed is FW400 spec).
I have not had problems with this drive. I use it daily as a FW400 drive since I have the Cube. I purchased this drive in future hopes of using it @ FW800. Even when Apple announced possible severe problems with Oxford 922 chipset, which this drive has, I did not have any problems what so ever. The only problem I did have was that my internal drive started flaking @ the same time. Eventually, my internal drive crashed and I had to rebuild it. During that agonizing process, I realized that I did not do a proper FIRMWARE upgrade from OS 9 to OS 10.2.x.
Once I did the firware upgrade, my Cube never had any problems and OWC Mercury FW800 still ran like a champ. I recently upgrade my CPU to 1.3 and still use the OWC drive.
p.s.: I also have G3 (pismo) laptop and use the OWC Mercury FW800 drive to transfer data between laptop and the Cube.
Comments
Originally posted by Whisper
Sorta. You need to get an adapter. Or a Firewire 800 card. The first option is cheaper, but the second option is probably faster.
Is it possible to purchase a Firewire 800 hard drive (with the understanding that the speed will be cut in half on my current Mac) and then have the hard drive run at full speed when I upgrade to a G5? Or do I definitely have to have a card to run the drive no matter what?
Originally posted by ginopiazza49
Is it possible to purchase a Firewire 800 hard drive (with the understanding that the speed will be cut in half on my current Mac) and then have the hard drive run at full speed when I upgrade to a G5? Or do I definitely have to have a card to run the drive no matter what?
You should be able to get an adaptor that will let you plug a Firewire 800 device into a Firewire 400 port. I believe such adaptors sometimes (often?) take the form of the entire cable. In any case, be sure that I'm right about that before buying your drive.
I have a FW800 (IEEE1394B) external HD with Oxford 922 chipset.
It will NOT work with any of my FW400 based macs (G4/Digital Audio or PB15" TiBook).
It just shuts down the computers, when it is plugged in.
This is with the correct 9-to-6-pin FW800-to-FW400 compatibility cable.
Repeat. It doesn't work and nobody has been able to figure out why.
YMMV, as always. Just be careful before shelling out big bucks for FW800 gear if you have a FW400 Mac.
I have not had problems with this drive. I use it daily as a FW400 drive since I have the Cube. I purchased this drive in future hopes of using it @ FW800. Even when Apple announced possible severe problems with Oxford 922 chipset, which this drive has, I did not have any problems what so ever. The only problem I did have was that my internal drive started flaking @ the same time. Eventually, my internal drive crashed and I had to rebuild it. During that agonizing process, I realized that I did not do a proper FIRMWARE upgrade from OS 9 to OS 10.2.x.
Once I did the firware upgrade, my Cube never had any problems and OWC Mercury FW800 still ran like a champ. I recently upgrade my CPU to 1.3 and still use the OWC drive.
p.s.: I also have G3 (pismo) laptop and use the OWC Mercury FW800 drive to transfer data between laptop and the Cube.