Questions & Answers for Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter

You can use this adapter since it's FireWire 800
You could then buy a standard FireWire 800 to 400 cable and have it work for older FireWire devices

What you use as an example (external thunderbolt drive) WILLNOT work.

This adapter converts a thunderbolt port to FireWire, so you can attach older FireWire devices to the newer thunderbolt port.
This will not allow older macs with a FireWire port to suddenly get thunderbolt capabilities.

• Answered by Ryan C from Bowmanville
• Sep 24, 2013
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (External Thunderbolt drive to older Firewire Mac adaptor???)

That's because your 2010 iMac has a Displayport port, not a Thunderbolt port. They are physically similar, but your Displayport will only connect to video devices with Displayport connections.

• Answered by Nathan D from New Brighton
• Nov 2, 2012
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (imac mid 2010 and Thunderbolt port)

FireWire will definitely outperform a USB 2.0 connection. USB 2.0 had serious bottlenecking issues that made it terrible for large file transfers. Even with the conversion from Thunderbolt to FireWire, Thunderbolt enough speed to provide full FireWire 800 speeds to the port. USB 2.0 had a max speed of 480Mbps (Megabits, meaning real world 60 Megabytes per second), where as early version of FireWire 800 provided 786Mbps (98MBps). Overall you should get better performance through FireWire to transfer large amounts of data. USB 2.0 rarely ever reached it's full output due to cheap parts being used in hard drives and flash drives that maxed out and underperformed.

• Answered by Edward V from Brampton
• Jul 11, 2015
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Speed difference between FireWire 800 converted to thunderbolt and USB2)

The 3rd Generation iPod was the first model to feature a dock connector, and had the play/pause, menu, forward, and back buttons in a line above the touch wheel.

You can Identify your iPod Model at Apple Support KB article HT1353

If this is the case, any USB or Firewire 400 to Dock Connector cable should be OK to use, just use a USB one, and plug it directly into your MacBook.

If you have a first or 2nd generation iPod (With a physical wheel, or a touch wheel with buttons arranged around the wheel (but not on the wheel) and with a FireWire port on the top of the unit (no dock connector) you will additionally need a Firewire 400 to Firewire 800 cable. You can plug the FW400 end into the iPod, and the FireWire 800 end will fit into this accessory. You can then use a specialist piece of software to extract the music from your iPod.

• Answered by Silas P from Elwood
• Sep 11, 2012
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Will this work with my (very old gen3) ipod?)

I seen your post and tried it out because I was curious as well about this. I have a maxed out 2011 iMac with a Digi003 Factory Console. I switched from my native Firewire port and used the adapter to go thunderbolt. I launched a Pro Tools session and received a "hardware buffer underflow" error message every time i tried to playback and no matter how high I set the playback engine buffer sample it still occurred. I switched back to my native port and problem solved, everything was back to normal. I hope this helps.

• Answered by Dominick C from Simpsonville
• Apr 16, 2014
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Could I use this adapter to connect my Digidesign 003 factory to my iMac thunderbolt connect or would it lack sufficient power?)

No. This device creates a FireWire port for the host Mac when connected to a Thunderbolt port. It needs software drivers to do this, and cannot function as a converter on it's own. Because of this, it cannot be used as a bridge to do the opposite. (That would be a completely different adapter, but as far as I know no one has made one yet.)

• Answered by John S from Notre Dame
• Aug 8, 2012
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Can this adapter be used to connect thunderbolt external hard drive to older mac with firewire 800?)

No, it is not a Thunderbolt 3 type connector (USB C), you would need to connect this connector to a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 connector. I have not seen a Thunderbolt 3 to Firewire connector from Apple.

• Answered by Seth B from Fort Lauderdale
• Jun 12, 2017
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Is this a Thunderbolt 3 type connection? Does it have the new USB-C type plug?)

This adapter has a thunderbolt 1 style plug. It won't work with USB-c/TB3. I think it will work with a TB to TB3 adapter. I have such an adapter and it works with my Belgian TB dock, which has a Firewire800 port. I haven't tried the FW800 on the dock, but USB 3.0 and the Displayport connector all work. I think This adapter would work with a TB to TB3 adapter.

• Answered by Eric F from Lutherville
• Dec 12, 2016
• Flag as inappropriate Answer (Will this adapter connect directly to the new MacBook Pro 2016 USB-c/thunderbolt ports?)