FireWire?

March 18, 2005 9:44 PM

An iPod question that has me stumped. I have an old firewire only iPod (2nd generation). I would like to sync it to a Windows computer that has an absolute lack to slots for a PCI card, but has four open usb 2 slots. I cannot find any sort of converter. Does anyone know if such a thing exists? They seem so similar.
posted by rtimmel to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I believe the answer is a great big no for this purpose. The problem is that you're converting between two different paradigms of how a disk looks to a computer, which would require a lot of overhead to do transparently. It's not just a case of converting high-level commands to low-level commands like a USB-to-IDE bridge chip does.

Your options are basically swapping one of your cards (unless we're talking about a PC with no slots) for a firewire card (or a combined USB/firewire, graphics/firewire or sound/firewire card), finding out if your motherboard has on board support for firewire that just needs a breakout cable, or getting a newer iPod.
posted by cillit bang at 10:15 PM on March 18, 2005

I think I found exactly what you are looking for.

# Built-in FireWire port for daisy chaining other FireWire devices
# Up to 480Mb/sec data throughput when connected to a USB 2.0 host controller

or so it says. Unfortunately, it costs almost $100. They are out there apparently, but this is the only one I could find. Another option is to buy something like a USB 2.0 Hub that also supports firewire (I have seen quite a few of these) but that is not going to be any cheaper.
posted by sophist at 2:37 AM on March 19, 2005

Scratch that, the hub would be much cheaper. Full featured ones run you $50 and you will never run out of firewire / usb ports again. They definitely have the technology, why can't they just release a cheap converter?
posted by sophist at 3:02 AM on March 19, 2005

Sorry to be disparaging, but neither of those devices will do what rtimmel wants. The Alera thingy allows you to connect an Alera CD duplicator to a firewire port. I've no idea why the site you linked to mentions USB.

With the D-Link hub (as with any combined hub I've seen), the firewire and USB circuits are entirely separate, so for the firewire ports to function you have to plug your computer into the upstream Firewire port.
posted by cillit bang at 7:50 AM on March 19, 2005

I be surprised if you can find anything that does what you want on the cheap. The thing is firewire requires a non trivial amount of processing at each end of the wire. This a feature not a bug as this is what allows you to chain any two firewire devices together without the use of an actual computer. Compare to USB where the computer acts as a router for all USB devices on the chain.

Essentially a USB-Firewire adapter would have to be a small computer.
posted by Mitheral at 10:33 AM on March 19, 2005