It depends on the Firewire your limited to. Firewire come with 400 and 800 type. Would a ethernet hard drive be more practical?
I am using a WD Studio 1TB firewire 800 for my TM on a 2009 MBP.
I just picked up a WD Studio FW 800 - 3 TB recently. They've been discontinued in favor of Thunderbolt and USB 3, so some places are having close-outs on them. Picked mine up at Fry's almost 1/3 off.
There is no USB to FW - they are not compatible - at all.
You can use FW to Thunderbolt. So, a FW drive you buy now can be used with an adapter to TB later.
USB: it's not compatible with anything but itself - USB 3 is backwards compatible with USB 2 so you can use a USB 3 external drive with your USB 2 ports and be compatible with
Thanks for all the information! Is FireWire headed for extinction?
Thanks for all the information! Is FireWire headed for extinction? I tend to hang onto equipment too long (still occasionally use my old G4, as it is compatible with my obsolete version of Rosetta Stone). But antiquity is not an asset in the computer world.
Yep. Apple started it, and now Apple is finishing it. My new iMac no longer has a FW port, instead it has two Thunderbolt ports. Shades of SCSI. (Remember that?)
Doubt Thunderbolt is going away since more than Apple has plans for it and now there is TB2 at twice the read/write speeds.
Because Thunderbolt can be adapted into nearly anything (including Firewire AND usb), I tend to think it does have a bright future -- but as a "professional" hookup rather than a "consumer" hookup (this is, not coincidentally, the same thing that happened to FW). USB 3 and future iterations will probably continue to satisfy consumers for the foreseeable future. Professionals need something FAR better, and that's exactly what TB gives them.
As for the myth that TB peripherals being more expensive is going to kill it -- doesn't seem to have hurt SSDs does it? The cost per GB is ridiculously high compared to HDD, but consumers see the benefits (speed). Same thing with TB if you ask me.
Another question: Can Time machine contents be transferred from the old macbook to a new one?