Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adaptor

Reviews for Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adaptor

Customer Reviews and Ratings

3.0 out of 5 stars

Based on 58 reviews

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Works for FW800 but lacks ability to daisychain Thunderbolt

    • Written by from New York

    This adapter worked to connect a FW800 disk to my MacMini w/o any problems.

    However the major problem is that it does NOT have a second Thunderbolt connection on it so I can not daisychain the Thunderbolt devices. So effectively, I must choose whether to use Thunderbolt for a network, FW800, or graphics connection. This defeats the purpose of supposedly being able to daisy chain up to six devices on a single Thunderbolt chain.

    4 of 5 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Not good enough

    • Written by from NEW YORK

    When Apple decided to eliminate the mini-DVI, Ethernet and Firewire ports on their new MacBook Pro laptops (three ports in total) and replace them with just two Thunderbolt ports, they created a dilemma for many MacBook Pro owners - myself in particular - trying to upgrade their systems. My MacBook Pro is the hub of a desktop system that includes Firewire drives, Ethernet connectivity and an Apple LED Cinema display. With only Thunderbolt ports on the new laptops and no single adapter that can handle both Ethernet and Firewire, I have to decide what to give up. Apple certainly wasn't thinking about their legacy users when they settled on this design. The old Apple would not have eliminated both the Ethernet port and the Firewire port - these are both current technologies - or it would have made an adapter that could connect both Ethernet and Firewire through a single Thunderbolt port and would include that adapter - free of charge - with every MacBook Pro it sold. Does Apple expect everyone to scrap their DVI, Firewire and Ethernet devices and purchase all new Thunderbolt devices? Really Apple.... !!!

    29 of 32 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Very disappointed

    • Written by from Los Angeles

    Bus power is too low. I'm a photographer and need to daisy chain 2 drives on set, without AC power like I did when running firewire in the past. Very poor design that doesn't consider professionals.

    21 of 22 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Works but what a waste

    • Written by from Pittsburg

    I thought I had made a good call getting an external firewire 800 drive as a time machine backup for my old iMac but was pretty bummed when my new iMac arrived and I realized I couldn't even plug in the firewire drive to set up the new machine without spending another $30. Come on Apple! How about throwing us loyal apple customers one firewire port for old time sake?

    25 of 30 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Works as advertised

    • Written by from Laval

    I got this cable earlier in the week so that I could connect my old G-Drives through my TB G-Raid then to my new late 2012 iMac.

    I have 4 G-Drives (2 x 1TB and 2x 3TB) plus a g-drive mini (500GB) using FW800 and a 4TB G-Raid using TB.

    I Daisy chained all my G-Drives with FW800 (including my g-drive mini) into my G-Raid with this cable and it worked flawlessly. Even my g-drive mini that has no AC adapter got enough power to work as normal. Added bonus was that my speeds seem to be faster than when I had all these drives plugged into my 2010 Macbook Pro. I was transferring ~60GB of RAW images from my g-drive mini to my G-Raid at 87 MB / sec.

    I have been using this setup for a week now (4 + hours a day) transferring files back and forth with zero issues.

    I gave it a 4 / 5 just because I do not like the fact I needed an adapter to connect technology that apple made into an apple product. I think they should have kept at least 1 FW800 port on their new iMac's.

    8 of 9 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Works for me

    • Written by from San Diego

    I read that some people had issues with the adapter not able to powered up their bus-powered portable hard drives and the transferring speeds being slow. Fortunately I have not had those problems. I have a retina display MBP and a WD My Passport Studio FireWire hard drive and have had no issues with the adapter.

    4 of 7 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Works for transferring MiniDV tapes

    • Written by from Fishers

    I wanted to transfer my old MiniDV tapes from my HD DV camcorder to my Core i7 MacBook Pro. Given the reviews I wasn't sure if this would work or not, but decided to give it a shot.

    I used the Thunderbolt adapter to connect to a 9-pin firewire cable I got at Fry's, then connected the cable to my Sony DCR-HC65. Worked fine - was able to instantly import the MiniDV movies into iMovie.

    No complaints - worked just as the Firewire connection would have worked.

    22 of 22 people found this useful

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  • 3.0 out of 5 stars

    Update your firmware drivers of your harddisk

    • Written by from Breitenbach

    Update your firmware drivers of your harddisk before wasting time with connection problems.
    Many drives are NOT Mountain Lion compatible with the driver instaled on purchase date.

    It worked for me and my 1 year old WD drive.

    Only 3 stars because I hate cable solutions.

    7 of 8 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Worked at first... Now, not so much

    • Written by from Baton Rouge

    Disappointed. If you are going to take it off of the computer, make an adapter that works. Apple was famous for FW800! Now clearly they could care less. Supppperrrr spotty using G-Drives. Killin me here.

    Sincerely,

    A professional user. (not a soccer mom)

    15 of 16 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Drives 'drop' while connected

    • Written by from San Francisco

    Drives mount when connected, then drop after 5 or 10 minutes. This has been tested on two different drives (one bus powered and one powered). Total frustration with this product.

    16 of 16 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Does not work with MiniDV camera

    • Written by from Calgary

    I bought this cable hoping I could get old video off my MiniDV camera tapes so I could edit it in FCPX and then get rid of the tapes. I have the camera turned on and FCPX does not recognize it. The camera does not appear under "Cameras" in the media import. I'll be returning the cable. Guess I'll have to capture using my ancient laptop that has a firewire port.

    27 of 29 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Handy adapter to have!

    • Written by from Tucker

    I was probably one of the last people to ever purchase a 17" MacBook Pro =( The primary use of the machine is for using ProTools, and this bandy device allows me to use both my external hard drive and my audio interface. Works great...before purchasing this, I was maxing out the bandwidth of the Firewire port with those two devices connected together. I'd say this is a must have if you require more than one Firewire port, or to add Firewire to the more compact machines such as the MacBook Air.

    9 of 9 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Simply does not work at all!

    • Written by from Henrico

    I'm on my second TB/FW adapter. With the first, my G-Drives would randomly unmount themselves constantly, sometimes while I was actively using them. After exchanging the adapter, neither of my external drives will mount at all!

    Both G-Drives worked flawlessly through a FW800/FW400 cable on my late-2006 iMac for years, and continue to work flawlessly through USB on my new 2012 iMac, but they're a couple of unresponsive bricks when connected through this useless adapter.

    I've been working with an Apple Senior Advisor for several days trying to resolve this problem, but I honestly believe Apple just has a junk technology they haven't worked the bugs out of yet. Either it's firmware, something in ML, or the hardware in the adapter itself is faulty, but a lot of people are having the exact same problem.

    Very disappointing!

    28 of 29 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Awesome!!!

    • Written by from RICHARDSON

    I'm very happy Apple goes the extra step to actually implement the standard; I'm extremely pleased with the 1394 implementation; for all those questioning the power handling of this adapter...the fuse on the 1394 power side is a 1.5A fuse..fully compliant with the standard; you can transport 10W+ continuously over this little thing (it'll work near 15W too :-) ), which is good enough for some serious medical applications, such as mine. Thanks Apple for squeezing essentially a PCI express card down to that size and still be compliant, and have very nice thermal performance as well. Also great job on the EMI shield design.
    5 stars *****

    13 of 13 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Will not power external HD

    • Written by from CLARKSVILLE

    Forget trying to use this on a portable HD that doesn't have it's own power supply. It will not work. Does not provide enough power.

    15 of 18 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    underpowered

    • Written by from Portland

    This can provide only 7W to firewire devices. There are many, many devices that need more than this. You should absolutely check before buying to find out what your devices need in terms of power. Otherwise this is useless, as it is for me more than half the time.

    15 of 16 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Works exactly as advertised

    • Written by from Commerce Township

    This is a Thunderbolt to FW800 adapter, as such it works exactly as advertised.

    There are a lot of editorial comments in the reviews but this works as advertised. It is reliable and offers good performance when used with FW800 drives

    4 of 6 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Apple's losing their touch

    • Written by from North Canton

    I needed the FW 400 connector, didn't verify this one would work before ordering since there was only one option, and the adapter in the mail is only compatible with the FW 800 devices. I'm afraid that getting an adapter from 400 to 800 may cause compatibility/performance/driver issues which is the last thing I want to have to consider after a costly upgrade to thunderbolt. Working with Apple is feeling more like the PC world all the time. Good thing I have nothing else to do since I'm now on the hunt for a FW to FW adapter to go into Apple's Thunderbolt to FW adapter and hope that it works. Very disappointed.

    21 of 54 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Only one FW capability but there's two FW options?

    • Written by from Powder Springs

    I can't help but feel cheated and robbed by Apple..... they had no problems over the years selling me FW 400 and FW 800 devices yet this adapter only works with one of them. I can't even connect my older Apple iSight without now going out to find someone who sells a FW to FW adapter to go into Apple's Thunderbolt to FW adapter. pretty stupid if you ask me. Why didn't you include an adapter within the adapter if you're going to require it anyways?

    27 of 48 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Extremely disappointed

    • Written by from Houston

    This is for Firewire 800, the older G5 Firewire are not compatible and now I need another converter just to sync information and files from another mac. I have spent way too much money converting everything to Thunderbolt already and now I need a converter for the Firewire 400. I am disappointed in Apple Inc. and their Thunderbolt.

    21 of 38 people found this useful

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