PCMCIA Firewire?

After asking Uncle Google, it seems that there are several types of these. And the basic ones consist of a card with some ports (1, 2, or 3).

Some have external power supply with 6 pins (for devices that require power through Firewire) and some don't with only 4 pins.

Then there's IEEE 1394b and 800, are there many devices that currently (or soon to be) use Firewire 800? It is suppose to have twice the transfer rate.

I also read somewhere that PCMCIA has a limitation which prevents Firewire/USB 2.0 from reaching their maximum transfer rate, is that true?

Finally, there's also USB 2.0 which is also available on PCMCIA. But I figured Firewire is a better choice since I do have USB 1.1 on my laptop, and USB 2.0 does work, just very very slow....

Does anybody have experience or comments on PCMCIA firewire cards?

-YC

I have the belkin one with 2 x 6-pin output. Works great but no idea on the maximum transfer rate. It has no bus-powered capability and you do need an optional external power supply for it. 6-pin (data + power) can easily converted to 4-pin (data only) with 6 to 4 pin cable. I still think USB2.0 is more common/popular unless you want to use it on DV (4-pin), then go with firewire.

hmm....it depends on what kind of PCMCIA you have on your laptop. If it is an older model, it may have a 16bit one which I believe is only rated at 12mb/s, with a newer 32bit (or they call it cardbus) it's quite a bit faster (can't really remember the actual speed)but I think it's probably still not up to the speed of the USB2.0 or firewire, so the speed will slow down due to the bottle neck there.

So far Firewire still doesn't seem to be too popular other than on DV products, some highend digital cameras and a few fancy webcams.

USB 1.1 has tranfer rate of 12mb/s and Firewire (original) 480mb/s, USB 2.0 is 500ish and Firewire 800 is 800, so the USB2 on your laptop supposed to be faster than the 1.1

Hmm, should get one of them...be kinda silly though, having firewire on a 1993 Amiga A1200 before my 2002 PC!

Many thanks guys,

It seems that after some more googling, my laptop (Fujitsu s-4546) has a 32-bit PC card slot. So either Firewire or USB 2.0 would still be faster than the existing USB 1.1.

-YC

I have a few firewire products including a 250GB firewire external hard drive, codecs and some random stuff. The adaptec firewire pcmcia card seems to work best. I'm pretty sure it's a 32bit cardbus card. It's got three six pin ports and I think one four pin port. You can also plug in an optional power adapter for powered firewire devices. It works better than the pyro firewire pcmcia card, which didn't even see the external hard drive for me.

Between USB2.0 and firewire400 (the older standard), firewire is definately faster with the external hard drive. Still kinda slow when moving multigigabyte files.

Certainly won't be cheap, but how about both?
Adaptec DuoConnect

I have a DuoConnect for my desktop PC.
Hardly ever use Firewire.
Usb 2.0 works for me.
There are more products (not types, but products) with 2.0 than firewire (especially in storage).

Someone else is bound to have a knockoff off the DuoConnect now......

PCMCIA will limit USB2 or Firewire, but you will still be far faster with most devices than with USB 1.1 alone. You will find mostly 6 pin cards, and then you just get either a six pin to six pin cable, or a 6 pin to 4 pin cable, depending on what the peripheral requires.

There are also a few cards out there that give you both USB2 and Firewire on the same card... giving you extra flexibility for future purchases.

David <><