[iPoder]

I am considering to buy the pioneer 16X DVD+R DL drive and an enclosure for it, and I have a 15" Powerbook Al with Fw800 port.

My questions are

1) Does it have any benefit to go for Fw800 instead of Fw480 enclosure? Fw800 case costs a lot more than Fw480 one, and I need to buy the cable too. Theoretically, Fw480 should be able to handle the data transfer speed.

2) Does the Powerbook come with a Fw800-to-Fw480 converter? I couldn't find mine if it ever came with one. Does Apple make one (I need one for my Windows machine)?

3) I really like Apple's thin firewire cable. But I cannot find the existence of thin firewire cable for Fw800 on the Apple website. Does anyone know that Apple make a short and thin Fw800 cable?

The answer for the questions above will help me decide to get the Fw800 enclosure or just the regular one. Thanks.

[Luca Rescigno]

Writing a DVD at 16x only requires a 21 megabyte per second transfer rate, easily within the bandwidth of regular Firewire 400 (not 480, the 480 megabit speed is for USB 2). Firewire 400 can transfer data at up to 50 megabytes per second, so you should just save your money and get a plain Firewire case instead of a Firewire 800 one. You only need Firewire 800 for multiple drives or if you have a very, very fast hard drive (like a 10,000 RPM one).

[iPoder]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
Writing a DVD at 16x only requires a 21 megabyte per second transfer rate, easily within the bandwidth of regular Firewire 400 (not 480, the 480 megabit speed is for USB 2). Firewire 400 can transfer data at up to 50 megabytes per second, so you should just save your money and get a plain Firewire case instead of a Firewire 800 one. You only need Firewire 800 for multiple drives or if you have a very, very fast hard drive (like a 10,000 RPM one).

Thanks for the quick response. You are right on Fw400, not Fw480. My mind slips on this one.

I think so too that Fw400 should be able to handle 16X DVD burning speed. But I also consider buying a multi-bay enclosure to put burner and HDs together. I just wonder that getting a Fw800 will be better in the long run.

I checked the peripheral forms, and see a lot of topics on this. However, I don't know if Powerbook design limits the usefulness on the Fw800.

[Luca Rescigno]

Actually, even if you're using a hard drive and a DVD burner in the external case, you still won't hit the wall using FW400. It would tax the bandwidth when burning data from the external drive to the burner, but even then it would only require 42 MB/s (reading from the HD at 21, writing to the DVD at the same speed). But if you have more than one device, you might want to get FW800 anyway, just to be sure. I mean, you have the port on your PowerBook, why not? FW800 has enough bandwidth to easily handle two hard drives and an optical drive all on a single port.

[iPoder]

This is what I am thinking about buying

Pioneer 16X DVD+RW, DVD-RW, Dual-layer at NewEgg for $80.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...157&DEPA=0

And enclosure is Dual Bay (5.25 inch) w/ Two Mobile Rack at cooldrives.com for $120.

http://www.cooldrives.com/dkatladrsuup.html.

So the total is 200 dollars, and I will have a DVD drive installed on one bay, and leave one slot and two mobile racks for my future HD purchase (swap in and out between different drives).

I already have Toast software, so it should recognize the drive.

It is the FW400 (Oxford 911 chipset) configuration, though. Good idea?

Edited: For 20 dollars more, I can get a FW800 configuration (NOT Oxford 922 chipset, though). Additionally, I will need an FW800-to-FW400 adapter for my Windows machines. Tax and shipping extra.