What is Firewire

What is firewire?  It's an older standard to sending data that is very similar to USB.  The advantage of firewire when it came out was it's speed.  With transfer speeds from 50 - 400MB/s a long time ago, if you needed something quick, this was what you needed to go with.  It is also commonly referred to as IEEE 1394.

For today, if you need something quick, it's still a standard you could go with, however if you want something that will go into the future I think USB 3.0 will take it there.  Firewire is just less common, not as plug and play friendly as USB so I think this standard will get phased out as USB continues to get faster and adopted more.

In the picture below, the motherboard supports firewire with a header numbered 3. You usually have to enable it in the BIOS as well to use the port.

motherboard-diagram

motherboard

For devices that need to constantly move a lot of data, firewire is still a great speed connection.  It's still a great interface for an exterior hard drive.

To add firewire ports, simply plug in the connector that came with the motherboard, then make sure it's enabled in the BIOS.  Always get the most current driver for the firewire device you plan on using to get the most speed out of this connection.

Go from What is Firewire to What is a Motherboard
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