Any uses for FireWire 800 port?

[BigCanoe]

Can the FireWire 800 ports on older MacBook Pros be used for anything today? Is the a FireWire to Usb 2 converter?

 

[bgalakazam]

hasn't that not been in use since 10 years ago? I remember it last being used in early 2000s with Sony cameras. USB 3.0 kind of killed it completely and 3.1 and C definitely did it.

 

[JTToft]

Sure it can. I use it daily for my Time Machine drive.

 

[machenryr]

I still use FireWire all the time. 400 though. My audio interfaces Metric Halo ULN-8.

 

[xb2003]

Can the FireWire 800 ports on older MacBook Pros be used for anything today? Is the a FireWire to Usb 2 converter?

Of course! It can be used for anything that has a FireWire 800 port.

I have an older LaCie dual disk drive that only supports USB 2 and FireWire 400 and 800, so I often use FireWire 800 for the extra bandwidth. There is still stuff like Audio Interfaces that use 400.

 

[Fishrrman]

Firewire can be used for:
- external drives
- audio interfaces (very stable way to run them)
- video

USB3 has taken much of firewire's "fire" away, but there is still plenty of hardware out there that can utilize it...

 

[MacInTO]

I have several FW800 hard drive enclosures that I use it with.

 

[BrettApple]

A lot of AVL equipment still use FireWire. Namely audio interfaces as mentioned above. I've also got a 2TB WD drive plugged into my 2007 iMac via FW800, significantly faster than USB 2.0, and there's no way to get 3.0 on it so it's the next best thing.

 

[dsmedic10]

I use it for a brand new Focusrite audio interface, firewire 400 (using 800-to-400 adapter).

 

[cambookpro]

I have three FireWire 800 drives to store external media and backups on. It's faster than USB 3 which my MBP doesn't have, and cheaper than Thunderbolt. Win-win really, though if I had a new laptop I'd probably just use USB 3.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I use FireWire on my Mac Pro for an external disk that I share between it and my Mac mini server.

 

[PowerPCFan]

There are FireWire SSDs you can get, and also the iPod Classic uses FireWire 400 (i think) to connect to a computer.

 

[PowerPCFan]

There are FireWire SSDs you can get, and also the iPod Classic uses FireWire 400 (i think) to connect to a computer.

You'll need to get a FireWire 400 to 800 in order to connect an iPod Classic.