|
At $[.]. My Lacie external drive is slow to recognize the port and asks for a new driver.
The Belkin unit uses a TI chipset which is ideal for most audio hardware. I got this to add Firewire 800 to my 5 year old XP system so I could run some audio software and connect a keyboard and external drive.
Once I loaded it up, the firewire ports started working. Unfortunately, the included factory driver on a CD did not work for me.
Researching this problem on the internet, I found the solution to be downloading a free Unibrain driver. Be patient and it will resolve itself in a couple of minutes.Packaging was perfect and delivery a day early.
for this unit plus some cheap memory I also added, you can avoid buying that new computer a little bit longer and still run most audio apps and hardware.
The documentation that came with the card, and that available on line, is poor. The card was supposed to include a cable, but did not. It was clearly an item that had been returned and sent out again. Despite that, I would recommend the card because it has the TI IEEE 1394 chipset, which seems to be the best one. But I would not recommend the seller because this was used merchandise passed off as new.
I use it with a Drobo (gen 2, 4TB partition) on my Vista Home Premium PC, using the driver that WIndows picked for me. It didn't pick up the Drobo the 1st time I plugged it in, but after power cycling the Drobo a couple of time, the card picked it up, not sure if it's Drobo or the card since I don't have any other Firewire 800 device to try with. I'm getting about 23 MB/s write and 30 MB/s reads. These are faster than the speed I got with USB2 using the same Drobo, which are in the teens of MB/s.
This card I bought for a Mac G-5 but it does NOT work on a Mac G-5. This was a total waste of my money.
When reading the minimum system requirements, be careful to review the supported operating systems. Belkin has not yet developed Windows Vista drivers for this card.
|
