Need Firewire 800 ExpressCard

Agree!!

Please update us. Should we buy this product or not, I have an important "in-the-field" project coming up, should I get the FW400 SIIG card or is the NitroAV FW800 OK?

Regards

I use the NitroAV card every night to back up my MBP. As was mentioned above, you have to pay attention to the power state via the little card icon in the menu bar. I have had little trouble inserting the card, turning on my external drive, and having the MBP mount the drive. When I'm done with backing up, I unmount the drive (from the finder), click on the menu icon & select "power down card", and turn off the drive, then remove the card. On rare occasions, when I plug the card in, the MBP fails to see it. As long as I do things in this order, I've had almost no trouble.

Thanks for the reply David.

What you say makes sense (almost treating it like a SCSI chain). IMO ...seems a bit of overkill to use it only for back-ups (although FW800 obviously saves time). Have you ever used the system to digitise (to/through the FW800 port) from a camera/deck with the camera/deck in the MBP's FW400 input?

Regards

Alan, I just use it for backup. As you say, it's overkill, but I love technology. 😉

I recommend you do not buy this product.
For three reasons.
1/ it doesn't work => the disk didn't mount,
ever, no matter what I tried.

2/ it often caused the machine to crash on insertion.

3/ It doesn't fit properly in the PCI slot.
Its loose and moves around.

A guy in the apple store told me there's a new
better card coming out within two weeks
( i forget the manu. ) He said he'll
notify me of that.

I had a frustrating experience and wasted time and
money with the product AND the companies support
service.

Regards



macbook pro // 2.16 ghz // 2gb ram Mac OS X (10.4.6)

To clarify the above post =>
the nitroav 2 port firewire 800 / expresscard/34 adaptor is the one I advise people not to buy

Thanks, it's such a pity that manufacturers are so slow to develop expresscard product alternatives, is it such a big challenge?

I second Liam's recommendation. Do Not Buy the Nitro card. It doesn't work. I tried it in two macbook pro's, the 15" and the 17" and it doesn't work in either. They told me the second one they sent worked in their tech dept but I tend to doubt that. I'll wait until another one is available and has a good record of working before dropping any more $$$.

Thanks, your feedback is valuable to us.

Regards

Belkin US has a FireWire 800 ExpressCard/34 listed as "Coming Soon" on their website. Though it doesn't seem to be available on the UK site as yet. I have emailed Belkin to try and get more information but no reply as yet.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=278329

I just purchased a Belkin FW 800 ExpressCard. My MBP does recognizes it but only as a generic product. There are no specific drivers for this device. The packaging only says for use with Windows, but on their site, the same product says that it works with Mac OS X. It has the same part number.

I plugged it in with the computer already powered. The icon showed up in the top menu. (showing generic info) I plugged in my drive. It usually automatically boots up and mounts, but I had to manually start it up. It mounted and I could open and use files fine. I trashed the drive and the drive inside the enclosure actually turned off twice before unmounting (not good). I then turned the power off to the card from that menu item and pulled it out. I put the laptop to sleep. Later in the day I plugged that drive into my desktop with another drive to use it as a back up. I came back in the morning to find my desktop crashed with the fans going at 100%. Later, I found my laptop (after closing the lid) frozen with the fans going 100% and very, very hot all over. I've never had that happen before.

The only new thing I did was the ExpressCard that day. I'll report after more use. I'm kind of scared to use it honestly b/c it's very important info.

I may just get a FW800 => FW400 cable and use those instead b/c I know that will work okay.

Hi Taylor M

Thanks for giving us this info. Any further news or update on how the Belkin card is doing?

Thanks

Still looking for a reliable FW800 expresscard34 for my MBPro.

Anyone find one that works well?

Only company I will NOT do businesss with is Acumen/Firewire Direct/NitroAV!

I'm thinking of buying this one from SIIG
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1081

They've made good expansion cards for the Mac before, and they have been around for a while. This one only has one port however. The design is unique, so I think this was developed by SIIG. Best of all, it works without any additional drivers.

so nitro and belkin stink as fw800 express cards. what about the SIIG? i need to buy one asap. i plan on buying the lacie all terrain 80gig fw800 drive, but i need a good expresscard for my macbook pro 15"