Advansys IEEE1394 Adapter Card Review

The business of supplying the soon to be ballooning demand for FireWire compatibility is not something to be underestimated. With data transfers of up to 400Mbits/s to external FireWire capable devices, the race is on bring out the best package, based on the least materials. Advansys has managed to do just this, by basing their IEEE1394 adapter card on a singe OHCI host controller. Sort of an all-in-one deal. The trick is that while managing to cut down materials costs, they have also managed to produce a card that out performs our reference IEEE1394 adapter card. 

The IEEE1394 PCI host adapter card comes with a driver CD containing Super 1394 software, one FireWire cable to connect video devices and illustrated instructions. Cost is about $78.

 

What you get

In our case when we cracked open the box were interested to see we had our hands on what looked like an engineering sample. There are no real differences between this card and the ones you may end up getting, except for some minor labeling. Along with the card comes a copy of Super 1394, basically a utilitarian version of Video Studio, a video editing package. The FireWire cable is about 5" long and connects the standard IEEE1394 to the micro-IEEE1394 jack which comes standard on many of today's digital still cameras, digital video cameras, and other multimedia devices.

Probably one of the most enticing features of IEEE1394 is the amount of devices which can be connected on single port. Up to 63 devices can be "daisy-chained together with a maximum of 16 hops of up to 4.5 meters between each device." If we are talking external hard drives for a moment that is potentially one very large mass of storage going through one relatively small wire.

With 75Gig IBM hard drives in mind, that could equate to 4.73 Terabytes of storage....