[X4U] Firewire or USB 2

[Stroller]

On Mar 4, 2005, at 4:34 pm, Allan Rube¹ wrote:
> My old firewire drive is dead. I have a G4 dual with usb 1 and 
> Firewire 400.
>
> I could get a firewire drive for $200 or for the same price buy a usb 2
> drive (same size) and a 4 usb 2 card to install in my Mac.
>
> Is there any disadvantage of going the usb 2 route? It seems that way I
> could use the drive when I go visit my son who has a pc.
>
> Is it a simple plug and play (no software) for the usb card (I was 
> looking
> at a store brand card at CompUSA.

I looked at USB cards a couple of weeks ago, after something Randy 
Singer mentioned, and thinking that my G5 shipped with too few USB 
ports. They seem a bit problematic, for my G5 at least 
<http://tinyurl.com/5aznr>.

<rant>
Why can't more peripherals contain a hub, so I can daisy-chain them?
Why can't Apple just put a few more USB slots in the back? I built an 
Athlon 64 for a customer the same week my G5 arrived & it had 6 ports 
in the back, compared to my G5's measly 3!!
</rant>

Anyway... if you really want PC-compatibility, the cheapest thing might 
to be to buy your son a Firewire card for his PC - I'd doubt you'd pay 
more that $15 for one -  but for $199 you can get a portable hard-drive 
that does both USB2 & Firewire 
<http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10559>.

Stroller