Ethernet over FireWire: How?

Ed Stover estover at nativenerds.com
Mon May 16 21:23:07 PDT 2005


Olivier Nicole wrote:
> Hi Rob,
> 
> 
>>Can someone give me a layman's answer to how I can
>>use the firewire as the second ethernet card?
>>The backside of the computer has a socket labeled
>>'1394', but this is not a RJ-45 connector. Do I
>>need a converter cable from firewire to RJ-45?
Just drop $15 for another NIC.
> 
>  
> I'd say that "Ethernet over Firewire" is really what it says it is,
> Ethernet is encapsulated in Firewire, so at the other end you also
> need to attach to a "Ethernet over Firewire" device.
> 
> Beside, Firewire is much slower than Ethernet I guess.
Firewire is essentially twice as fast as 100baseT and almost as fast as
1000baseT (GigaBit)
> 
> If you build a router for your lab, I'd recommend that you buy proper
> Ethernet cards, they will prove much more reliable (last longer,
> deliver higher bandwidth, attach nicely to some weird Ethernet
> switches...) than cheap solution like "over Firewire".
"over firewire" is not a cheap solution, actually it will cost you more
upfront and in the long run then ethernet.
> Is it worth
> saving 50$ on a machine that is supposed to handle a good share of
> your lab infrastructure?
Remember a decent NIC is $8-$15  ..
> 
> Olivier
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