[Techtalk] firewire

[Maria Blackmore]

On Tue, 8 Jul 2003, kim dang wrote:

> The Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301 comes with a "4-pin"
> firewire port. I want to connect an external Firewire
> hard drive to it for back-ups. I would prefer not to
> get a hard-drive where I also need to carry an
> external power supply. 

Ah, we hit the catch straight away :)

If a firewire host device isn't really expecting to supply power to an
external device, it will have a 4 pin firewire port to stop you from
doing this.

> All of the Firewire hard drives that have an INTERNAL
> power supply come with the 6-pin port.

This is pretty much on purpose :)

You may find this useful though:
http://store.sik.com/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=SS&Category_Code=FireJuice

But you still have the problem of where to extract the power from.  The
USB port is possible, but not neccesarily advisable.  

> Is there any way I can use a firewire hard drive with
> some type of adaptor from the 6-pin to 4-pin on the
> laptop and still have it powered by my computer and
> not an external power adaptor?

Well, if your laptop isn't expecting to power an external device, is it
really wise to try to?  You will most likely severely reduce your run on
battery time.

> Option II:
> Also, one option I was thinking was buying a firewire
> PC card - so i wouldnt need to carry the external
> power pack for the firewire HDD - what do people think
> of that?

I think the PC card won't supply power either :)

> Other Back-up Options?

Are many and varied ... how long is a piece of string?

> I am looking for Very light weight here since the
> laptop already weighs a lot. Any other back-up options
> appreciated too. It will be used a lot for travel
> overseas so I can't hook up to a network and CD's are
> getting tedious.

As I suggested in another post, you may find there is milage in a
USB attachable Jaz drive :)

Maria