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FireWire Ports
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FireWire is another versatile port that you can use for connecting many peripherals. This way, it competes with the USB port. While USB ports seem to have more of a market share currently, the FireWire port is much faster. It is also known as the IEEE-1394 port or i-Link port.
Because of its speed, it is often replacing USB in devices that require large amounts of data transferred fast, such as external hard drives, CD-ROM's and video and audio devices.
Today, two FireWire standards exist: FireWire 400 and FireWire 800. But today's laptops mainly come with FireWire 400 built-in.
The FireWire Port is twice as fast!FireWire 800 can transfer data at up to 800 Mbps (megabits per second), and so it's twice faster than the USB 2.0. That means you can send more than a CD’s worth of data every ten seconds.
And it is 30 times faster than the USB 1.1.
This extremely fast FireWire 800 port is used in applications such as high-speed storage, video capture, video and graphics.
| Port Name | Port Picture | Used to Connect | Description |
| FireWire 400 |
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Digital camcorders, scanners, printers, storage devices, digital camcorders and cameras | IEEE-1394 6-pin |
| FireWire 800 |  |
Digital video (DV), professional audio, hard drives, high-end digital still cameras and home entertainment devices | IEEE-1394a 9-pin |
Multiple FireWire ports
can be added to your cheap laptop by connecting a FireWire Repeater with up to 6 ports, or better yet, you
can try a USB/FireWire Combo hub. Combo hubs can be connected to your laptop through the USB or the FireWire port.
If your laptop doesn't have FireWire then you can always get a FireWire adapter card that fits into the PCMCIA card slot (or NIC card slot). It looks like this >
Companies such as Sony, Canon, JVC and Kodak have widely adapted to FireWire.
Adapter cables for the FireWire 800 9-pin connector let you use the FireWire 400 products on the FireWire 800 port.
The FireWire 800 is backwards compatible with the FireWire 400 but you have to use a specific adapter cable to connect FireWire 800 device to FireWire 400 port or FireWire 400 device to FireWire 800 port. When the FireWire 400 and 800 devices are mixed, the transfer rates revert to the lesser 400 speed.
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