[X4U] New Mac Pro's and FW400

[Zane H. Healy]

At 9:40 PM -0700 7/27/10, Randy B. Singer wrote:
>On Jul 27, 2010, at 6:05 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
>
>>In looking at the new Mac Pro one of the things that I quickly 
>>noticed is that they totally lack FW400 ports.  Well, I only have 
>>one FW800 device, my Drobo.  OTOH, I have several FW400 devices 
>>(including a Camcorder, a Canopus ADVC-50, and a Firewire Audio 
>>box). Should I simply get a cable to plug them into the computer, 
>>or would I be better off buying a PCI-Express like the Allegro 
>>FW400 PCIe?
>
>FireWire 800 is fully backwards compatible with FireWire 400 devices 
>(though the devices will only run at FW400 speeds, of course).
>
>So you will be fine using a "bilingual" cable such as this one:
>
>6-foot, 9-pin to 6-pin BILINGUAL FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 Cable
>$4.88
>http://is.gd/5rXJD

Does it mean I can only run FW400 on that port?  Realistically at 
this point it isn't much of a concern, right now I only have 3 drive 
enclosures plugged in.  Basically I'm thinking of SCSI where if you 
have different speed devices, the chain will sync down to the slowest 
device.

Zane



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