Anyone still use firewire drives?

[spiceyokooko]

I just recently purchased an 160Gb Iomega Firewire 400/USB 2.0 drive as a boot drive/extra backup for any of my G4 laptops that prove troublesome.

So far its worked like a charm - I've been very pleased with it.

 

[tmtomh]

I agree that USB/FW drives are ideal.

But, not having the budget for one at the time, several years ago I bought a very inexpensive FW enclosure - like under $20 - for a 60GB IDE laptop HD I had leftover from an iBook repair for a friend.

The drive has proven invaluable, for that whole series of Macs that have FW ports but don't have USB 2.0 - most of the iMac G4s, the B&W G3s, the beige G3s, and so on. The drive has been a lifesaver (and time saver) so many times, when I needed to install an OS or transfer large file backups to or from these kinds of machines.

The only pity is that to use the drive with my '09 iMac (which has only FW 800 ports), I need to spend almost as much on a FW400-800 adapter as I did on the original FW drive enclosure itself.

 

[CJ_Miller]

I don't understand what would be obsolete about firewire. I have listened to people knocking it ever since the beginning. Always wondered what the hate was all about. Even in the early-mid 2000s people argued that it was a "failed" interface, and when it was pointed out that it was generally faster than USB there was usually a speculation that "yeah... but why bother? USB 3 is going to be out by next month and it'll be faster anyway." So these people opted to dis firewire for there own weird biases, pinning their hopes on USB 3 which didn't start appearing on the shelves until ten years later! Failed at what? Obsolete how?

All ranting aside, yes, I use firewire drives, and my Motu 828 audio interface. They work great! What's not to like?