Using FireWire under Mac OS X
Using USB under Mac OS X
Adding a USB or FireWire hub
Troubleshooting FireWire and USB connections
Adding and updating drivers
Apple's list of successes continues to grow over the years — hardware, applications, and (of course) Mac OS X — but the FireWire standard for connecting computers to all sorts of different devices is in a class by itself. That's because FireWire has been the port of choice for all sorts of digital devices that need a high-speed connection. Even Windows owners have grudgingly admitted that the latest version, FireWire 800, just plain rocks. Ya gotta love it.
In this chapter, I discuss the importance of FireWire to the digital hub that I discuss in Book III, and I compare it with both version 1.1 and version 2.0 of Intel's Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection technology. I also talk troubleshooting and expansion using a hub.
So what's so special about FireWire, anyway? Why does Apple stuff at least one FireWire port in almost all of its current Macintosh models? (The MacBook Air is an exception.) Heck, even the iPod (Apple's MP3 player, which you can read more about in Book III, Chapter 2) originally used only a FireWire connection. (Its official name is IEEE 1394, but even the Cupertino crew doesn't call it that — at least not very often.)
First things first. As countless racing fans will tell you, it's all about the speed, my friend. The original FireWire 400 port delivers 400 Mbps (megabits per second), which is fast enough for all sorts of peripherals to communicate with your MacBook. The following list includes a number of hardware toys that are well known for transferring prodigious file sizes:
Digital video (DV) camcorders
High-resolution digital cameras
Scanners and some printers
External hard drives and CD/DVD recorders
Networking between computers
For example, consider the sheer size of a typical digital video clip captured by one of today's mini-DV camcorders. DV buffs commonly transfer several hundred megabytes of footage to their computers at one time. Check out the relative speeds of the different types of ports in Table 3-1, and you'll see a big attraction of FireWire and USB 2.0 connections.
Table 3.1. Transfer Speeds for Ports through the Ages
Port | Appeared on Personal Computer | Transfer Speed (in Megabits) |
|---|---|---|
PC Serial | 1981 | Less than 1 Mbps |
PC Parallel | 1981 | 1 Mbps |
USB (version 1.1) | 1996 | 12 Mbps |
FireWire 400 | 1996 | 400 Mbps (version 1) |
USB (version 2.0) | 2001 | 480 Mbps |
FireWire 800 | 2002 | 800 Mbps (version 2) |
Ouch! Not too hard to figure that one out. Here are three other important benefits to FireWire:
Control over connection: This is a ten-cent term that engineers use, meaning that you can control whatever gadget you've connected using FireWire from your laptop. This is pretty neat when you think about it; for example, you can control your mini-DV camcorder from the comfort of your computer keyboard, just as though you were pressing the buttons on the camcorder.
Hot-swapped: You don't have to reboot your MacBook Pro or restart Mac OS X every time that you plug (or unplug) a FireWire device. Instead, the FireWire peripheral is automatically recognized (as long as the operating system has the correct driver) and ready to transfer.
Power through the port: FireWire can provide power to a device through the same wire — typically, enough power is available for an external drive or recorder — so you don't need an external AC power cord for some FireWire devices. (Apologies to owners of DV camcorders, but those things eat power like a pig eats slop.)
However, FireWire isn't finished evolving yet — the cleverly named IEEE 1394 B (called FireWire 800 by anyone with any sense, including the folks at Apple) delivers a whopping 800 Mbps. That, dear reader, oughta be fast enough for both you and your loved ones. These ports appear on most of the top-of-the-line Apple desktop and laptop models at the time of this writing.
Oh, and as you would expect from Apple, the new ports will be backward-compatible with older FireWire hardware. However, the ports aren't physically exactly the same, so you'll need a plastic port converter to connect FireWire 400 devices to a FireWire 800 port. (Such important little conversion fixtures are commonly called dongles. No, I'm not making that up. Ask your favorite techno-wizard.)
The other resident port on today's MacBooks is the ubiquitous USB, which is short for Universal Serial Bus. (By the way, ubiquitous means ever-present or universal, which I quickly looked up by using my Dictionary widget — read all about widgets in Book III, Chapter 2.) USB has taken the world by storm. It's used for everything from mice to keyboards, speakers, digital cameras, and even external drives and DVD recorders. (A friend of mine never misses the chance to point out that USB — which was originally developed by Intel, the makers of the Core 2 processor — was given its first widespread implementation on the original iMac. You're welcome, Intel.)
Unfortunately, those last two are somewhat problematical: Technically, you can add a USB 1.1 external hard drive, but don't expect response times anywhere near what you'd enjoy with an internal hard drive (think more along the lines of a floppy drive). Ditto for a CD recorder — 2X is about the limit for the recording speed with a USB 1.1 connection. (Don't even think about recording DVDs over a USB 1.1 connection.) Now, compare this performance with that of similar equipment using a FireWire connection, which provides nearly the speed of an internal hard drive and CD and DVD recording at the fastest pace possible.
As is the case with FireWire, USB connections are hot-swappable and may provide power over the connection. (Some USB ports don't supply all the power that devices need — more on this later in this chapter.) A USB port offers a more limited version of Control over Connection as well, making it a good choice for virtually all digital cameras.
Not to be outdone, a USB 2.0 specification arrived several years ago that delivers performance comparable to the original FireWire standard: USB 2.0 can transfer 480 Mbps, although far less efficiently than FireWire, so the FireWire connection is still faster overall. These ports are backward compatible — meaning they work with the original USB 1.1 ports as well. (Don't call Apple a snob ...at the time of this writing, all the MacBook models in Apple's current stable have USB 2.0 ports.)
Suppose that you've embraced FireWire and USB and you now have two USB 2.0 drives hanging off the rear end of your laptop — and suddenly you buy an iPod. (Or you get another USB device that's as much fun as an iPod, if that's actually possible.) Now you're faced with too many devices for too few ports. You could eject a drive and unhook it each time that you want to connect your iPod, but there must be a more elegant way to connect. Help!
Enter the hub. Both the FireWire and USB specifications allow you to connect a device called a hub, which is really nothing more than a glorified splitter adapter that provides you with additional ports. With a FireWire or USB hub at work, you do lose a port; however, most hubs multiply that port into four or eight ports. Again, all this is transparent, and you don't need to hide anything up your sleeve. Adding a hub is just as plug-and-play easy as adding a regular FireWire/USB device.
I should also mention that FireWire supports daisy-chaining — a word that stretches all the way back to the days of the Atari and Commodore computers, when devices had extra ports in the back so that additional stuff could be plugged in. However, not every FireWire drive has a daisy-chain port (also called a passthru port). With daisy-chaining, you can theoretically add 63 FireWire devices (or 127 USB devices) to your MacBook — talk about impressing them at your next Mac user group meeting!
Man, I hate it when FireWire and USB devices act like boat anchors. FireWire and USB peripherals are so doggone simple that when something goes wrong, it really aggravates you. Fortunately, I've been down those roads many a time before, so in this section, I unleash my experience. (That sounds a little frightening, but it's a good thing. Really.)
Because FireWire and USB are so alike in so many ways, I can handle possible troubleshooting solutions for both types of hardware at one time:
Problem: Every time I turn off or unplug my external peripheral, Mac OS X gets irritated and displays a nasty message saying that I haven't properly disconnected the device.
Solution: This happens because you haven't ejected the peripheral. I know that sounds a little strange for a device like an external hard drive or a digital camera, but it's essentially the same reasoning as ejecting a CD or DVD from your Desktop. When you click your USB or FireWire device and hold the mouse button down, you see that the Trash icon turns into an Eject icon; drag the device icon to the Eject icon and drop it, and the external device disappears from your Desktop. (You can also click the device icon to select it and press
Tip
If Snow Leopard recognizes the device as an external drive, which is usually the case with a digital camera, external hard drive, or external CD/DVD recorder, you can simply click the Eject button next to the device icon in the Finder window's sidebar.
Problem: The device doesn't show a power light.
Solution: Check to make sure that the power cable is connected — unless, of course, you have a device that's powered through the connection itself. This can sometimes pose its own share of problems, however, when using USB devices. Not all USB ports provide power to devices because some are designed only for connecting mice, keyboards, and joysticks.
Tip
To check whether an unpowered USB port is your problem, either connect the device to a USB port on your MacBook or connect it to a hub or another computer. If the device works when it's connected to another port, you've found the culprit.
Problem: The device shows a power light but just doesn't work.
Solution: This can be because of problems with your cable or your hub. To check, borrow a friend's cables and test to see whether the device works. If you're testing the hub, try connecting the device directly to your MacBook using the same cable to see whether it works without the hub.
Tip
If you're attempting to connect a FireWire device through another FireWire device, try connecting that first device directly to see whether it works. If so, the middleman device either needs to be switched on to pass the data through or it doesn't support daisy-chaining at all — in which case, you may be able to place the "problem" device at the end of the chain. Of course, you can always connect both devices directly to your laptop as well.
Problem: Mac OS X reports that I have a missing driver.
Solution: Check the manufacturer's Web site and download a new copy of the USB or FireWire drivers for your device because they've been corrupted, overwritten, or erased entirely. Because Mac OS X loads the driver for a USB or FireWire device when it's connected, sometimes just unplugging and reconnecting a peripheral will do the trick.
Speaking of drivers ...old and worn-out drivers are a sore spot with me. Drivers are simply programs that tell Mac OS X how to communicate with your external device. Each new version of Mac OS X contains updated drivers, but make certain that you check for new updates on a regular basis. That means using both the Software Update feature in Mac OS X (which I cover in Book II, Chapter 7) and going to the Web sites provided by your USB and FireWire hardware manufacturers.