Firewire 800 to USB 3.0 adapter?

A good solution for hard drives.

http://www.amazon.com/MiniPro-External-FireWire-Portable-7200RPM/dp/B003EMY3OA/r ef=sr_1_33?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413564964&sr=1-33&keywords=usb+3+to+firewi re+800+adapter

If the back of your hard drive also has a USB 3.0 connection - or if you have another hard drive that has that connection (like the one in the link pasted above) you can daisy-chain those two hard drives together- allowing the 2nd hard drive to take the place of an expensive adapter...!!

I could totally be wrong, but I'd guess you can't daisy-chain drives using different protocols. I know if you use a Firewire 400 drive it will not have 800 speed down the line, I think USB 3 gets reduced to "2" speed the same way if you try to use them together. I fear if it were as easy as plugging in drives using different plugs then there'd be adaptors to do the same thing.

Personally I've got myself in a spot because I bought a 4TB bare drive and can't find a FW 800 enclosure that can handle that size. And my 2008 (late) MBP only has Firewire 800. Sigh. Not sure what I'm gonna do with my shiny new 4TB backup drive now.

Plugging a USB 3 drive into my FW 800 jack would have been a neat trick, but I fear it's not possible for the reasons stated by folks here. Darn.

And the Belikin Thunderbolt express dock doesn't work from firewire on the iMac either. It must have thunderbolt in and you will get out usb3, firewire and so on. But not firewire in and usb3 out.:(

http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php

Voyager Q

– Data Access Now Made Simple!

– Boot and Swap Drives at Will

– Plug and Play, Hot Swap and add a new drive at anytime

– Choose Multi-Interface or USB 3.0 & 2.0 Interface

Newest Gen Multi-Interface Docking Solutions

Hard Drives Up To 6.0TB

Works with Mac and PC

USB 3.0 / FireWire 800 / FireWire 400 / eSATA interfaces

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I have a partial solution but it is not a whole one. I have an old Lacie portable drive that is similar to this new model Lacie "portable" Hard drive. I connect it to my late 2009 i5 quad core iMac. That machine runs USB 2.0 and Firewire 800. I bought the drive a few years prior when we used to "Daisy Chain" drives together. Here's the cool thing about that... the back of the portable Lacie Drive has 2 Firewire 800 ports, a Firewire 400 port, AND a USB port. All for connecting to the computer and "daisy chaining" other portable drives to it and thus adding more storage. It's old school methodology now. But I love this drive because it allows me to connect my "FirePod" audio interface using the Firewire 400 port. This is really amazing when you think about it. Using a portable drive to connect audio hardware and transition from Firewire 400 to 800 to do it.

I can also add USB drives and connect them although the cable has to be the "square shaped end" not the thin rectangular connection. You know the one usually on the back of a USB printer. The only problem is that this old drive was manufactured with USB 2.0. But if you can find an old hard drive with all of those ports in the back that is USB 3.0 and Firewire 800 then you should theoretically have an interface that transmits your USB connected drive to your Computer Via Firewire.

Well low and behold as I was looking for a picture of the rear end of my old drive I found the newer model that looks like it's got it all. Right HERE. That should do the trick and I think I may just buy one myself so I can interface my new USB 3.0 Raid to my old iMac. Fortunately my MPB has USB 3.0 so no worries there.

This should do the trick and you don't have to buy a computer to put in the middle as was suggested previously.

Wish you could have posted this earlier before I threw my "passport" external hard drives away. Oddly enough, I haven't thrown my Lacie hard drive away yet so I could have tried your trick.

Haha...I didn't think of it till I was searching for a solution myself and found the thread. I know the feeling well. Did the Lacie work for ya? If it doesn't You may have to get the new Lacie with USB 3.0. Sort of expensive for my taste just to get an interface but the 3 extra TB that comes with it sort of makes itseem worth it I guess. I think I'm getting one to connect my Raid that is USB 3.0. to this old iMac / Firewire 800.

I've had a lot of hard drives fail but this dang Lacie has been working for like 10+ years now. So nice that they continue to build new ones with the old standards... keep hardware relevant. New Macs are all thunderbolt and some new USB-C protocol that Mac is introducing. The media is always going to change, but it really ***** when you loose hardware connectivity due to new interfaces. Good luck with yours.

Once again, there are NO, NONE FireWire to USB adapters.

Such adapters ADAPT the connection ends NOT the actual data transfer protocol!

How many more years is this post going to aimlessly ramble on!