REDDRIVE Esata Adapter

[Chris Forbes]

I brought this up in another thread

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2504

but didn't want it to get buried. The red drive needs a "Y" adapter cable for Esata to a computer and power from an AC adapter so we are not limited to the bandwith of Firewire 800 ( as impressive as it is ) the esata connector is about 3 times faster than FW800.

I think this could be achieved with a minimum of effort. :devil: Not like you guys have anything else to do over there.

[Antoine Baumann]

The question is, will your RED-DRIVE sunstain more than 100MBytes/sec, which is the FireWire 800's rate?
I don't think so, that's why the limit won't be the FireWire connection, but the RED-DRIVE itself.

antoine.

[Stuart English]

The RED DRIVE and RED RAM digital magazines both have a mini-phono jack connector for external 12V D.C power, so in the case of an e-SATA hook up to your computer you would only need to create a LEMO to e-SATA cable.

At this point in time though, the speed of available hard disks or flash drives is still lower than that of FireWire 800, so there is no apparent advantage to this idea.

[Michael Hastings]

I think you meant "no" apparent advantage.


The RED DRIVE and RED RAM digital magazines both have a mini-phono jack connector for external 12V D.C power, so in the case of an e-SATA hook up to your computer you would only need to create a LEMO to e-SATA cable.

At this point in time though, the speed of available hard disks or flash drives is still lower than that of FireWire 800, so there is apparent advantage to this idea.

[Paul Leeming]

Could someone please clarify a couple of things for me (and I used to build PCs so I'm by no means a dunce when it comes to computers!):

1. FireWire 800 as specced by Apple - the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire#FireWire_800) indicates that the connector is physically different to FireWire 400. Do Apple computers have this new connector and will the RedDrive use this same connector, or will it be the older style Firewire 400 four or six pin port?

2. Will the RedDrive get its power from the FireWire 800 cable when plugged into a computer for download/transfer or will it need a power brick of some sort? If so, will this be supplied with each drive? Specs seem to indicate power over the FireWire 800 cable interface itself, but with two 2.5" drives to power, will this be enough?

3. For the PC world, does anyone know of a compatible add in card (PCIe preferably) that will make this easy on our side of the fence?

Cheers in advance for your answers!!

Paul

[Chris Forbes]

Could someone please clarify a couple of things for me (and I used to build PCs so I'm by no means a dunce when it comes to computers!):

1. FireWire 800 as specced by Apple - the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireWire#FireWire_800) indicates that the connector is physically different to FireWire 400. Do Apple computers have this new connector and will the RedDrive use this same connector, or will it be the older style Firewire 400 four or six pin port?

2. Will the RedDrive get its power from the FireWire 800 cable when plugged into a computer for download/transfer or will it need a power brick of some sort? If so, will this be supplied with each drive? Specs seem to indicate power over the FireWire 800 cable interface itself, but with two 2.5" drives to power, will this be enough?

3. For the PC world, does anyone know of a compatible add in card (PCIe preferably) that will make this easy on our side of the fence?

Cheers in advance for your answers!!

Paul

1. FW800 is physically different to FireWire 400. All current model apple computers Do have a FW800 port. The FW400 port is not capable of carrying a FW800 signal.

2. I cannot say for sure if the drive will be bus power capable, I would guess no, it will have an AC adapter.

3. http://www.firewire-1394.com/firewire-800-pci-card-pci1394b3.htm

Do a google search these cards are plentiful and cheap.

[Paul Leeming]

Cheers Chris for your prompt response. Thanks also for the link. The one you linked to was only a PCI card but through that site I found the PCIe version here (http://www.firewire-1394.com/siig-pci-express-firewire-800-card.htm), so I am happy!

On a tiny website admin note for those moderators reading, how about changing the colour of, or underlining, links so that we can distinguish them from plain text? Seems like a "UI design principles 101" type of thing....

[Chris Kenny]

I don't know if Red's digital magazines will be bus powered, but it should be technically possible. Apple says you can pull 14 watts out of one of the MacBook Pro's ports (if nothing is connected to the other one). A 2.5" hard drive should use 2-3 watts.

[Nick Shaw]

I'm pretty sure the REDCINE/FCP demo at NAB was working off a bus powered RED-DRIVE, but can't be 100% certain.

LaCie's 320GB Little Big Disk, which is pretty similar to the RED-DRIVE does bus power off Firewire.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Just to clear up a few misconceptions about Firewire... Apple did play a role in the development of the "Firewire" standard, so did several others like Intel. It is actually governed by the IEEE as an international standard - hence IEEE1394, followed by various designations (a, b, d, etc..).

Many PC makers are also including FireWire 800 ports these days. As said by others, they are different than Firewire 400 (IEEE1394a/b, Sony iLink, etc..) ports. You can connect Firewire 400 devices with the proper adapter or cable to a FW800 port, but they obviously will run at the lower speed.

From all that I have gathered about the RED DRIVE, it has both Firewire800 and Firewire400 ports. Both ports are powered -- this means the FW400 is a 6-pin port and the drive is capable of running off of bus power, so a simple cable connection is all that is needed. They also have a USB2 interface as well that is bus powered, AFAIK. A 12v DC power input is also on the drive so it can run without being bus powered -- many PC notebooks only have 4-pin FW400 connectors or don't supply adequate bus power.

There are several Firewire800 cards available for the PC. Like I said, many vendors are now including it on their PCs as standard and motherboards are starting to appear with FW800 interfaces on them. However, for add-in PCI cards, look to peripheral makers like SIIG. They have a couple nice ones with the ability to take a PSU connector for bus-powering several external devices. Run about $60. PCI is still plenty fast enough to handle a FW800 bus, I haven't seen any PCI-e add-on cars for FW800. But then again, if I were building a new PC for myself right now, I would buy a motherboard with FW800 already integrated.

[Stuart English]

RED DRIVE can be bus powered over both Firewire800 and Firewire400 ports.

The USB2 interface however is a mini-USB, so like SATA, if it is used it needs to be powered from a user supplied 12v DC power input. if your PC notebook only has a 4-pin FW400 connector you will also need to use 12v DC power in too.

When connected to the camera, the camera supplies power to the RED DRIVE.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Thanks for the clarification, Stuart. :)