Big difference in Price between USB and Firewire unit, is it worth the Extra $50 for the firewire speed?
1631966
YES... I use my firewire connections frequently, and buy drives with two inputs so I can serial connect. Also gives flexibility to one more port option. I use a mac mini, and all USB ports are full - so this gives another option...
1897037
You cannot honestly tell if latency will exist until you use it. What interface are you using? USB or Firewire? 2 gigs of ram seems like a VERY basic machine so I can see potential software slowness, but again, you'd have to try. Just my experience with PCs I am going to say you will have some performance issues across the board.
1183002
Don't know the answer to the first question but it is bootable, but I was only able to boot via USB, not FireWire.
1584496
Firewire is great with video and photographs; I would go with firewire 800 (1394b) vs. 400 (1394a)
37427
I don't know - I stopped using this drive due to unreliable communication with the host computer. I never got the Firewire to work, and the USB often requires many attempts before the drive connects.
1197175
Sorry, but I don't think this mobo supports firewire. You might have to get some sort of converter from usb to firewire. Just search in Amazon: usb to firewire if you need it. You can go to the Gigabyte website to look at the specs: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4144#sp. I didn't see it in there. BTW, I think firewire only supports up to 800Mbps. USB 2.0 is up to 480Mbps. This mobo has USB3.0 that is 10x faster than USB2.0. I recommend buying USB products in the future so that you have more flexibility. The Lightning port (Apple's Lightning Bolt) supports 10Mbps, the new Lightning 2.0 supports 20Mbps. I don't know of many products supporting that the Lightning port so I think USB is the way to go. Otherwise, you need to buy adapters. Sorry for the late response. Goodluck
294678
Try and use - plug into - Firewire as it is faster than USB2.USB Speed = 400 Mb/s Firewire 800 = 800Mb/s
1304280
I'm not really sure but the USB and firewire connection works just fine for me.
1025181
The one we have is usb 3, according to Seagate's website there is a firewire 800 and usb 2.0. Evidently Seagate is making different versions.
1638897
Yes, firewire works perfectly (on Macs at least, I'm fortunate not to have a windows machine to be able to test this on). Enough power is supplied via the firewire cable to run the drive. USB is a different matter ... a single USB cable from a Belkin hub attached to my Mac Mini will NOT spin the drive up. The light goes on, but the drive never mounts and it remains invisible on 'Disk Utility'. I was worried this would be the same story on my laptop ... however, a single USB cable works just fine with a 2 year old MacBook Pro. I suspect that it depends how much power the USB delivers, and that newer machines may deliver sufficient. So, USB doesn't suck ... it just depends what you attach it to. I've tried this on a Belkin hub attached to my Mac Mini and on a 15" MacBook Pro.
681163
The only difference I can see is that it has two firewire ports instead of only one.
237205
Same here. I canceled this one and ordered the next one up (for $25 more) with firewire. The order was picked for shipping the same hour!
2159210
The one I bought supports usb 3.0 and esata-Not firewire-I think you can get one that does, just make sure to read the specs/see pictures-
204691
The Firewire model I purchased from Amazon is an older model that is being closed out. The newest model from WD is USB 3.0 and the newest iMacs are USB 3.0. My iMac is Firewire 800 and USB 2.0. I am very pleased with the WD drive and I use the Firewire cable(supplied) and the Firewire 800 port on my Imac.
1814001
I have no idea whether or not works with a firewire. I use mine with usb3 and a pc. My son uses one with a mac and usb2 w/o problems.
1584495
Theoretically, USB 3.0 should smoke Firewire. You may be running USB 2.0 and not realize due to drivers not installed or any number of reasons. In particular, are you sure the port you are using is actually a 3.0 port? Connected via a working 3.0 the transfer bottleneck is literally the drive itself, not the connection.
681162
From looking at the picture and description from the link... Both have thunderbolt so the data speeds are the same, the other drive has 2 thunderbolt ports no usb 3.0 (neither has fire wire), you can daisy chain the other one, it also has a built in fan instead of a heatsink. The only real difference is that you can hook multiple drives up to the other one, so if you have a second thunderbolt drive with a lot of media or you're working on a big project with a team of people that have their own hard drives with media it could be useful.