Firewire 800 PCIe Card for Mac Pro?

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Level 1

25 points

Firewire 800 PCIe Card for Mac Pro?

I'm looking at the OWC website at a *SIIG Firewire 800 3-port PCIe card* (part #NN-E38012-S1) versus an *Aaxeon FWB-68000 PCIe Firewire card* (part #AAXFWB68000)

Is anyone using either of these cards? Does either function well on a Mac Pro?

Are there other, better Firewire cards worth considering? The PCIe card must be Firewire 800-capable.

Mac Pro 3Ghz Dual-Core; 8 Gigs RAM (4 x 2); 500 GigHD; X1900XT, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Apogee Ensemble; Mackie MCU Pro; (2) UAD1-e; Logic Studio; Melodyne Studio 3

Posted on Apr 29, 2008 11:42 AM

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Answer 1

KiteSurfer Author

Level 1

25 points

May 2, 2008 2:36 PM in response to KiteSurfer

I was thinking of using an eSATA connection but am now revisiting the possibility for a FW800 connection

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Answer 2

KiteSurfer Author

Level 1

25 points

May 2, 2008 2:45 PM in response to KiteSurfer

Bump...

Given the limitations posed by the existence of only one, single Firewire Bus on the Mac Pro for routing both FW800 & FW400 traffic and, the bus' inability to handle different combinations of devices (well-documented on these forums) -- one would assume that many users have had to install a PCIe Firewire Card to create at least one additional FW bus.

Has anyone experimented with either of these cards or any other cards with the Mac Pro?

Results? Preferences?

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Answer 3

rob_ART

Level 2

426 points

May 3, 2008 4:49 AM in response to KiteSurfer

I've used the FW800 PCIe card from Sonnet Technology.

The only downside is that the write speed is lower than the built-in FW800 port.

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Answer 4

KiteSurfer Author

Level 1

25 points

May 6, 2008 2:08 PM in response to KiteSurfer

I'm going with an eSATA card and eSATA external drives instead.

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