why 2 ieee ports in Maxtor OneTouch III FireWire 400 and USB 2.0?

Nothing in literature with external drive, nor on
manufacturer's web site explains why the there are two ieee
1394 (firewire) ports. anyone know the purpose of having two?
--David

"J David Ellis" <nospam@home.org> wrote in message
news:QcGdndcLTrz7MbnanZ2dnUVZ_o6knZ2d@sti.net...
> Nothing in literature with external drive, nor on manufacturer's web site
> explains why the there are two ieee 1394 (firewire) ports. anyone know the
> purpose of having two?
>
Probably for `chaining` another firewire device.

On Oct 28, 8:35 am, J David Ellis <nos...@home.org> wrote:
> Nothing in literature with external drive, nor on
> manufacturer's web site explains why the there are two ieee
> 1394 (firewire) ports. anyone know the purpose of having two?
> --David

its so the devices can be stacked...and i think its up to a certain
number of devices too like 4 or 5..

i stand Corrected... thank you WiKi...

FireWire can connect together up to 63 peripherals in an acyclic
topology (as opposed to Parallel SCSI's Electrical bus topology). It
allows peer-to-peer device communication, such as communication
between a scanner and a printer, to take place without using system
memory or the CPU. FireWire also supports multiple hosts per bus. It
is designed to support Plug-and-play and hot swapping. Its six-wire
cable is more flexible than most Parallel SCSI cables and can supply
up to 45 watts of power per port at up to 30 volts, allowing moderate-
consumption devices to operate without a separate power supply. As
noted earlier, the Sony-branded i.Link usually omits the power wiring
of the cables and uses a 4-pin connector. Power is provided by a
separate power adapter for each device.

also... somthign i didnt know...

Networking over FireWire

FireWire can be used for ad-hoc (terminals only, no routers) computer
networks. Specifically, RFC 2734 specifies how to run IPv4 over the
FireWire interface, and RFC 3146 specifies how to run IPv6.

Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows XP include support for
networking over FireWire. A network can be set up between two
computers using a single standard FireWire cable, or by multiple
computers through use of a hub. This is similar to Ethernet networks
with the major differences being transfer speed, wire length and that
standard Firewire cables can be used for point-to-point communication.

Note that this feature is not supported in Windows Vista.[14]

The PlayStation 2 console had an iLink-branded 1394 connector. This
was used for networking until the release of an ethernet adapter late
in the console's lifespan, but was poorly supported by software.

J David Ellis wrote:
> Nothing in literature with external drive, nor on manufacturer's web
> site explains why the there are two ieee 1394 (firewire) ports. anyone
> know the purpose of having two?
> --David

I have a Firewire port on the back of my computer, and two Firewire
enclosures. You can do this with them. The "X" means the second
connector on the second drive is not used.

+----------+
Computer ----------| Firewire |
| Drive |
+---| #1 |
| +----------+
|
| +----------+
+---| Firewire |
| Drive |
X----| #2 |
+----------+

My experience suggests the daisy chain connectors are "active buffered".
If my computer talks to drive #1, I get higher bandwidth than drive #2.

There seems to be a bit of a bottleneck, for packets that go in and out
of drive #1, on their way to #2. YMMV.

I don't have a third enclosure, to daisy chain a third one :-)

Paul

"J David Ellis" <nospam@home.org> wrote in message
news:QcGdndcLTrz7MbnanZ2dnUVZ_o6knZ2d@sti.net...
> Nothing in literature with external drive, nor on manufacturer's web site
> explains why the there are two ieee 1394 (firewire) ports. anyone know the
> purpose of having two?

Daisychaining more firewire devices.

Firewire is meant to connect from device to device instead of a central hub
like USB.