Can you use firewire for networking?

[Sympathy4thedevil]

Hey, recently windows has been saying you can you firewire for networking instead of the basic ethernet plug, is this true or say made up b/s

 

[wedi42]

true, but i think its just for a direct connection between 2 computers

 

[Baenwort]

I've only ever used it for a PC to PC connection so I don't know how big of a network you could set up but it does work with WinXP with out any additional software.

 

[JackMDS]

The distance is very limited.

There is No Firewire devices beside a connection cable.

:sun:

 

[Teva24]

You can firewire network many many computers together, the limit is on the firewire card itself, i think some old cards limit the number of nodes on the firewire bus to about 64.

If you get 10 firewire cards that have 2 inputs each and 10 computers, you can daisy chain them together.

You can also buy firewire hubs that break out one connection to many. Firewire is all one long bus of data, so if you ever add a deivce the entire bus has to reset to accept the new device.
Example: two computers each with 3 port firewire cards, they are already networked together, both computers are playing a network game together, user on computer 1 plugs in a firewire harddrive and then the network game craps out as the network interface is temporarily disabled to accept the new harddrive.

Firewire cable is normally limited to 15 meters, but you can extend that with Firewire hubs or putting a device in the middle: computer 1 and two are 31 meteres apart, put a firewire hardrive in the middle so each cable length is less than 15meters..

Normal firewire transfer speed is 400mbit/sec, ethernet is typically 100mbit/sec. But you probably won't be seeing any noticable speed improvemnts.

Hope that helped.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: Teva24
You can firewire network many many computers together, the limit is on the firewire card itself, i think some old cards limit the number of nodes on the firewire bus to about 64.

If you get 10 firewire cards that have 2 inputs each and 10 computers, you can daisy chain them together.

LOL, like buying 10 Pintos to move a ton of sand.😉

:sun:

 

[Bluestealth]

Related question, why did microsoft drop 1394 networking support with vista?

Microsoft Statement

 

[Baenwort]

No idea but I'll put it on my list of reasons not to upgrade to vista. I use FW networking all the time as I always have a FW cable on me for my external HD and if I'm doing a spur of the moment troubleshooting for someone I or they normaly don't have a patch cable handy.

 

[JackMDS]

There are technology items that it is obvious that they are very useful and accepted by almost every one (Personal Routers, WIFI, as an example).:beer: There are aspects that are not popular but have some merit to exist, like HPNA aka, power plug LAN connection.

There are aspects that simple have No good reason to exist, like Firewire Network. I am sure that you would find few hundred people that have some concoction that can benefit from Networked Firewire, but that is not a good enough reason to support it for the masses.

Many notions, like the Firewire Network, comes from Psychological problem rather then a technology issue.

Examples,

Obsession with what can I do with the second NIC that happened to be on my Mobo.:shocked:

Making a LAN consist on External IPs because my ISP gives me 3 external IPs free.:thumbsup:

How can I stand empty Firewire jack at the back of my Mobo, it drives me crazy.:brokenheart:

And so on and so forth.

P.S. This is my personal observation it is nothing to do with Microsoft.