Customer Reviews

FireWire 800 3-Port PCI Card

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

Absolutely plug and play on a Mac, no problems. Great expansion of FW800 ports, if you use them.

I've tried the SIIG FireWire 800 3-Port PCIe - FireWire adapter - 3 ports and for some crazy reason I could not get the adapter to work on my system. I have an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield, on an ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA LGA 775 ATX Mobo, and G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 and the SIIG adapter was quite fussy-I knew the adapter was installed properly as the firewire 400 port worked just fine, but the 800 wouldn't. I was reluctant at first to try another bad adapter, but changing to this belkin was a breeze. Installation was as easy as sticking it into the PCI slot and installing the drivers and just like that I was transferring my data files from my Seagate 1TB internals to my Maxtor 1TB Onetouch externals at blazing 800 speed. It does make a difference in file transfer. So the lesson to be learned is if at first you don't succeed, change to a different brand because it could make all of the difference.
Good Luck

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.

While the installation of the card and software was easy enough, I was never able to get it to properly recognize my Lacie 1Tb external Firewire 800 drive. The problem could lie with the drive -- the Lacie tech said they work with some PCI cards but not all. The real disappointment was that in the process of hooking things up, one of the three ports came loose and disappeared back into the chassis -- a sign of sub-standard workmanship. Probably a good card for the money, and still functional (well, 2/3rds functional)with other firewire/i-link components, but I'm going to have to pay a bit more for a card that will work with my drive (which works fine, albeit much more slowly, on my USB 2 port).

The card was supposed to include a cable, but did not. It was clearly an item that had been returned and sent out again. The documentation that came with the card, and that available on line, is poor.

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 bought this for my XE PC in 2007 so I got my money's worth out of it driving firewire 800 external disks, but I have broken off 2 of the 3 sockets so I think it is time to replace it. I've never had that happen on any PC card before.

As a professional photographer and filmmaker, I generate a large amount of digital data during my normal day. A fast, reliable connection between my editing suite and my managed RAID devices is absolutely necessary.

So far, the card has proven reliable connecting to Drobo 4Tb and 8Tb raid arrays, using Windows 7 and the Unibrain driver. I recommend this card for high-capacity and high-throughput applications.

Brian

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. The Belkin unit uses a TI chipset which is ideal for most audio hardware. 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. Once I loaded it up, the firewire ports started working. My Lacie external drive is slow to recognize the port and asks for a new driver. Be patient and it will resolve itself in a couple of minutes.

Packaging was perfect and delivery a day early. At $[...] 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.

ADDED 4/6/2010 - After a couple of weeks, it stopped being recognized by my PC. After more research, I replaced it with a 2 port FW 400 card from LaCie which works very well with no problems. Evidently, 3 FW800 ports was too much for my system to handle.

The Belkin Firewire 800 card is an outstanding product however in the specifications and product description it does not explain that the card is not downward compatible to 400 speed without additional cables or firewire 800 drives which are expensive with limited availability. The product as shipped is not a simple plug and play with most firewire 400 configurations. To use the card you must acquire either a conversion cable or a firewire 800 drive.