I've had a MacBook Pro for a while now, and have been able to survive with the 2 USB ports only. Never used the Firewire port and never thought I'd need to. But I've recently had some issues...
The other night I had some serious show-stopping issues with my USB devices. Although everything had been working fine for the 3 sessions prior, this last outing I couldn't get any reliability out of my 40D and guide camera. They kept locking up. There was some communication going on, because I could connect to the cameras, the 40D shutter would open, but then lock up and freeze. The QHY5 guide camera would start capturing images for guiding, but then freeze after a while as well.
Other USB devices worked OK, but they're not as "hungry" as cameras I guess - EQMod to the mount, gamepad, FCUSB controller all worked fine.
My setup is one USB port goes straight to the 40D imaging camera. No hub. The other USB port goes to a powered USB 4 port hub that feeds QHY5, EQMod, FCUSB, and gamepad controller.
Discussing the issue with Peter (
peter_4321, oops, I mean peter_4059) he had a suspicion that the FCUSB is only USB 1.0 and that may drag down the whole hub to USB 1 speeds, and explain the QHY5 issue. Not sure if anyone can confirm that?
We thought that maybe if I can get the QHY5 on a direct line to the notebook, the other USB devices on the hub may be fine at only USB 1 speeds. Trouble is only the 2 USB ports.
So now I'm looking at a Firewire to USB adapter or lead. I know nothing about Firewire. USB I know keep cable lengths down to 3m long, use powered hubs if need to go longer, that's about it.
Firewire - how long can cables go? I understand data rates are very high, but assume if it's a USB adapter the data would be limited by USB rates? Do you reckon I'd be better off using the FW/USB cable for the imaging camera or guide camera? Does it matter?
Any other thoughts on what might have been causing my problems? What is really puzzling me is that the setup had been working fine just nights before. And the problem was on both USB ports, not just the hubbed one. I tried swapping them over. Same problem.