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LaCie Little Big Disk
User Manual
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What Are The Ideal Uses For FireWire?
FireWire helped fuel a revolution for digital content creators, and was awarded a 2001 Primetime Emmy Engineering
Award by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for its contribution. Due to its high bandwidth and support of both iso-
chronous and asynchronous data delivery, FireWire has found a very successful place in both the computer and consumer
electronics industries. Whether connecting game consoles, personal video recorders, home stereo equipment, digital TVs,
hard drives, CD/DVD-RW drives, printers, scanners, tape drives or other digital hardware equipment, FireWire is well-
suited to handle all these various requirements.
With the advent of the new FireWire 800 standard, the revolution created by the original will only grow. For those working
with digital video, the new standard will enable new bandwidth-intensive applications, such as multiple-stream, uncom-
pressed, standard-definition video.
Will FireWire 400 Devices Run Faster When Connected To A FireWire 800 Port?
Unfortunately, this is not the case. In order to attain FireWire 800 speeds, both the device and port have to be FireWire 800
enabled. For instance, an external hard drive with a FireWire 800 9-pin connection will only reach FireWire 800 transfer
rates when it is connected to a FireWire 800 9-pin host bus adapter card via a properly certified FireWire 800 9-pin to
9-pin beta cable.
When a FireWire 400 device is connected to a FireWire 800 port, the FireWire 400 device will only operate at the original
FireWire 400 speeds.
Will FireWire 800 Devices Work On FireWire 400 Ports And Vice Versa?
The new standard was designed to be backwards compatible, meaning that FireWire 800 devices will still operate via the
original FireWire 400 port. To connect a FireWire 800 device to a FireWire 400 port, a specific adapter cable must be
used, though. There are two types of FireWire 400 ports: 6-pin and 4-pin. For FireWire 800 devices to work, they must be
connected by placing the 9-pin end of the FireWire cable into the FireWire 800 port of the device, and the opposite 6-pin
or 4-pin end into the FireWire 400 port.
The same holds true for FireWire 400 devices being connected to a FireWire 800 host port. The 4-pin or 6-pin end of
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