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Goodbye, FireWire 400

by Mike Schramm Mar 4th 2009 at 8:00PM


As Macworld notes, this is it for the ol' Firewire 400. With the introduction of the new Mac mini the other day and the refresh of the Mac Pro and iMac lines, the old version of Firewire is left only on the white MacBook. It's evolution at its finest, and our good friend Nilay Patel over at Engadget put together this perfect video showing just how hard it is to say goodbye to yesterday.

As I said on the Talkcast a long time ago when this was first hinted at, it's not a huge loss in my eyes. This is an outdated standard, and if you've got anything sitting around that absolutely requires a FireWire 400 port (and you've already upgraded completely to a computer that doesn't have one), then it's time for an upgrade. Those happen, you know -- there's a reason they're not selling Polaroid film any more. Besides, FW800 ports can easily drive your FW400 gear with a $8 cable.

Nostalgia, however, is a powerful force. So it's with a damp hankerchief and wet eyes that some of us will bid farewell to FireWire 400. Long live FireWire 800!

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Analysis / Opinion Hardware Humor Peripherals Apple Mac mini MacBook Mac Pro

As Macworld notes, this is it for the ol' Firewire 400. With the introduction of the new Mac mini the other day and the refresh of the Mac...
 

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Barry

I JUST realized my Dell laptop had a FireWire port on it. O.O 1394... oh yeah...

March 09 2009 at 11:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
blevay

I agree that yes, FW400 is getting long in the tooth. But the thing that really gets me is that they've dropped a FW port from the computers all together. Sure, FW800 has a bunch more bandwidth, but it is highly inconvenient for me to chain some of my gear all together. If they're going to drop the FW400 port, the LEAST they could do is put a second FW800 on there to make up! AND, though this will never happen, it would be nice to include an adapter cable. That's my $.021847820

March 09 2009 at 5:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tom

firewire 400 is everywhere .. profools is still using 400..
yes just a cable away.. but still..



March 08 2009 at 11:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joaquín

It's funny how you say that if we have products with firewire 400, they are discontinued, and we should buy new ones... well, I just bought the Sony V1 (a PROSUMER HDV Camera) and the connection used is firewire 400... so I don't think is discontinued my friend...

And the solution Apple or you give is a cable that connects from firewire 800 to 400? Where's the cable that goes from firewire 800 to 4-pin 400?

So I DO need a firewire 400 at least for my video cameras. My only choice now is an external hard drive or the adapter a 3rd party is selling and that you only find through the Internet.

So once again... if they decide to make a decision like getting rid of the F400... they should've worked something out to help the video production industry.

March 06 2009 at 10:27 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Joaquín's comment
NorCalExplorer

I agree 100% with you. I had forgotten about all the cameras and video equipment that need fw 400 and that there is no adapter to go from 800 to a 4 pin 400 for connecting them to your mac.
If Apple plans on discontinuing fw 400 then they need to keep those who use it for videos and other equipment that need the 4 pin 400 in mind. Apple needs to make an adapter or keep fw 400 consumers line of macs.

March 07 2009 at 12:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kingtrae

I have already heard rumblings by owners of Digidesign audio interfaces that if you have a Digi 003 or MBox Pro and try to use both an external Drive and The Interface, that ProTools Won't even Recognize the Interface. This is HUGE!!! besides the substandard transfer speeds of USB 2.0 (480 Megabits or 60 Megabytes a second? never seen it, and I would wager that no one in the REAL world has either), the IEE1394a Standard offers more power to external devices vs USB, and the majority of video cameras still use the a standard and not the B. Yes, the adapter from 800 to 400 will probably work for a wealth of devices (Harddrives) it is questionable whether this will work for many audio and video devices.

March 06 2009 at 9:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kingtrae

I have already heard rumblings by owners of Digidesign audio interfaces that if you have a Digi 003 or MBox Pro and try to use both an external Drive and The Interface, that ProTools Won't even Recognize the Interface. This is HUGE!!! besides the substandard transfer speeds of USB 2.0 (480 Megabits or 60 Megabytes a second? never seen it, and I would wager that no one in the REAL world has either), the IEE1394a Standard offers more power to external devices vs USB, and the majority of video cameras still use the a standard and not the B. Yes, the adapter from 800 to 400 will probably work for a wealth of devices (Harddrives) it is questionable whether this will work for many audio and video devices.

March 06 2009 at 3:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kingtrae

I have already heard rumblings by owners of Digidesign audio interfaces that if you have a Digi 003 or MBox Pro and try to use both an external Drive and The Interface, that ProTools Won't even Recognize the Interface. This is HUGE!!! besides the substandard transfer speeds of USB 2.0 (480 Megabits or 60 Megabytes a second? never seen it, and I would wager that no one in the REAL world has either), the IEE1394a Standard offers more power to external devices vs USB, and the majority of video cameras still use the a standard and not the B. Yes, the adapter from 800 to 400 will probably work for a wealth of devices (Harddrives) it is questionable whether this will work for many audio and video devices.

March 06 2009 at 2:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Aaron Davies

Booooooooooorrrrring! Where's my GigaWire already?!? 3200 Mbps all the way, baby!

March 06 2009 at 2:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Aaron Davies's comment
kingtrae

Gigawire is already here- it's called External Sata or eSATA at 3Gbits a sec thoroguput, and I believe the next standard they're working on will double that.
Cheers!

March 06 2009 at 9:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Josh H

there was only one thing missing from that video. How could he not have the Charismac FireWire Dino as one of the pics. That is the best FireWire 400 hub ever made.

March 06 2009 at 2:10 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
alansky

I have no argument with the transition from Firewire 400 to 800, but the omission of Firewire from the aluminum MacBook is still unforgivable. Really, really bad move on Apple's part, as is reducing the number of Firewire ports to one on the new MacBook Pro. No way, nohow is USB 2.0 an acceptable replacement for Firewire.

March 06 2009 at 1:19 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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