Firewire

[maggietoo9]

My 3-4 year old Lian Li case has a port in front (with the USB ports) that says "I394"

This is, I think, firewire. How can I tell if it is 400 or 800?

I want to get a firewire portable drive. Seagate makes one that has optional ("flex") I/O connections (USB 2, USB 3, or Firewire).

How do I know if I can use this portable HDD? Would a HDD supporting 800 also be downward compatible with 400???

Thanks,
Ann

 

[jsc]

Yes. It would just run slower.

Your motherboard manual would tell you what you have.

 

[Hawkeye22]

It's most likely firewire 400. The ports look different between firewire 400 & 800. A firewire 800 port is rectangular where as the 400 is sort of angled on one side.

 

[jsc]

Oops. Didn't look deeply enough.

From:
http://www.firewire-1394.com/what-is-firewire-800.htm

"Compatibility with Current FireWire Products
FireWire 800 provides two modes of transmission:

1. The pure beta mode (a FireWire 800 device connected to a FireWire 800 port with a FireWire 800 beta cable)
2. The backward-compatible legacy mode (a FireWire 400 device connected to a FireWire 800 port or vice versa with a FireWire 800/FireWire 400 bilingual cable)

FireWire 400 devices use a 6-pin or 4-pin connector while FireWire 800 devices use a 9-pin connector. Existing FireWire 400 devices can be plugged into either type of port with the appropriate cable. FireWire 800 devices can achieve FireWire 800 speeds only when connected to a FireWire 800 port."

So 400 is electrically compatible with 800 but not physically compatible.

Sorry, maggie.
Thanks, Hawkeye.