6625WD Firewire adaption

would it be possible to replace the 4-pin firewire on a 6625 with a powered 6-pin firewire? Anyone have any ideas what this would involve?

 

why do you need that? USB 2.0 is at least theoretically pretty much faster than firewire.

 

I use mine for music production, and live work, so I have an external soundcard. Mine's a Focusrite Saffire LE, and is either bus-powered over it's firewire connection, or requires a power adapter. Most high-end soundcards are firewire-based; I can think of 3 or 4 usb2 cards, and 3 pcmcia cards. No one seems to be supporting expresscard yet. I would ideally like a solution where I could use the soundcard without the power adapter.

Also, I guess just to satisfy my curiousity as to why 6-pin firewire is so rare on laptops - whether it's just overlooked on pcs, or whether it's hard to supply enough power to a firewire plug.

 

I think there isnt that much firewire hardware anymore, as USB 2.0 came out.

And I dont think theres a problem to get the power for it either, USB has 5V too

(I just bought a external hdd enclosure, wich takes its power from 2 USB ports)

 

To my understanding, the lack of firewire (also know as i-Link) is the sony pattent that as first held it back, the higher cost since has it's own controller (and therefore takes some load of the cpu), and Intels Santa Rosa platform only support firewire400, not fw800.
@Sprint - external HD reviews shows time after time that firewire is faster, burst rate speed is misguiding.
As to getting a fw400 6-pin or even better a fw800 port on a zepto, I'll say it more than a long shoot, and you'll see an esata before the rest.
If you want fw get a macbook pro. (or a really expensive expresscard adapter, and I don't know if they can deliver power)
I have a external hd running on fw, and curse each time I have to use the 4pin, as it is so much harder to connect than the 6pin, so I'm with you.

 

well, the patent should no longer be a problem, considering that 4-pin fw400 is fairly widespread on better laptops.
Now I know why I've only seen fw800 on Macbook Pro's though... which I did look at before buying this Zepto, but they are a bit too expensive for me. The combination of reliability, clever audio functions in-built in the OS, and powered (and more reliable) firewire on Macbooks makes them very popular amongst the audio community.
Expresscards do not have sufficient power through them to be able to bus power firewire, and I suspect possibly not usb either... at least I wouldn't rely on it.
I have an external esata hd, and smile every time I use it at the speed of the thing. But I do wish I could bus-power my external soundcard.

I still don't really understand why manufacturers choose to include firewire, but not powered. Or whether it is possible to somehow circumvent the problem.

 

I should also point out that my firewire has been a lot more stable than many other computers I've experienced, and for this I am very pleased.

 

Wouldn't it be neat if you could get a cabel with a 6pin fw in the one end, and a 4pin fw and a usb port in the other end. The power could the be drained from the usb into the 6pin fw. Anybody wanna ask the ceo of belkin for this cabel?