8510p firewire -- What can it do?

I received my 8510p a couple days ago and have been getting all my programs loaded. Vista was quite slow when I first ran it, so I pretty much gave up and just installed XP. I'm quite happy that HP included both OS install CD's in the box. Updated the firmware and upgraded my RAM to 3GB and this machine is a beast. Call of Duty 4 works beautifully so I'm happy.

I'm looking for a way to transfer all my stuff off my desktop. I probably won't have enough space on the 160GB hard drive on this laptop, so I'm thinking of getting a external hard drive. There's a firewire port, but it's a 4 pin. Can this port handle firewire 400/800? or can I not even plug a hard drive into it? I've heard USB 2.0 hard drives aren't the fastest.

EDIT: Also, Can it handle firewire audio interfaces? Like M-Audio?

 

I don't know about firewire 400/800, but I do know that 4-pin firewire ports are not powered. However, most external HDs that connect via firewire plug into the wall for their own power, so power shouldn't be an issue.

 

The firewire port is for firewire 1394a or firewire 400. All the USB ports are 2.0. Although USB 2.0 is rated at 480 Mbps, some tests have shown that firewire 400 is a little faster. In other words, either a USB 2.0 or firewire 400 should be fine. I use a USB 2.0 external and have transferred around 80-100 GB in about an hour. I was watching TV at the time so it probably could have been quicker. The firewire can work with an external HD as long as the external supports firewire. You can't get a USB 2.0 only external and expect it to work with firewire (without an adapter if they make one).

On another note, I was actually surprised at how well CoD4 ran. Considering how good it looked, I still can't believe it ran without slowdown at 1280x800.

 

to elaborate on what Terraforce was saying, with USB a power supply is not always necessary. If you want a portable external drive, I would go with a 2.5" disk (laptop drive) with USB. In this case, it would act just like a thumb drive requiring no power. Last time i checked windows didnt do firewire 800, only 400.