firewire 400 vs 800

The mid year 2011 refresh iMacs have firewire 800 and so I was wondering if this port is backwards compatible with a peripheral that is only firewire 400 capable? Is the firewire connection like a usb 1.1 vs 2.0 where a 1.1 device will work fine in a usb 2.0 slot?

Yes, it is. The connector types are different, however. So, if you have a FW400 device that you want to attach, you'll need a cable that goes from FW800 to FW400. I bought one of these and it works great.

AFAIK, FW 400 and 800 have different shaped plugs. One won't fit in the other.

Just a point of clarification - even though you can physically interface the two, it doesn't make a FW400 device run at FW800 speeds. The bus scales down to suit the lowest common denominator.

cwa107 said:

Just a point of clarification - even though you can physically interface the two, it doesn't make a FW400 device run at FW800 speeds. The bus scales down to suit the lowest common denominator.

Click to expand...

Oh. So you're saying that it basically does what a usb 1.1 vs 2.0 situation would do where it'll slow down the speed to all devices connected to the fw 400 even if I have a daisy chain of fw 800 devices?