Firewire cable question

Hi, I just got an external hard drive with both Firewire 400 and 800 support. It also has a 6-pin plug and a 9-pin plug. My laptop, however, only has a 4-pin plug. The hard drive has a USB power adapter, so that's what I'll be using for that. But, I'm looking into buying a cable to connect to the Firewire port on my laptop. I was wondering if there would be any difference in speed (or otherwise) between using a 9-pin to 4-pin cable and 6-pin to 4-pin cable.

Thanks

 

Greetings, nicemarmut.

AFAIK, there is no difference in speed between the 4-pin and 6-pin - both are IEEE 1394a, and are limited to the same speed as USB 2.0 (480 M Bit/s). The 9-pin, however, is IEEE 1394b, which provides up to 800 M bit/sec (but is slated for 3.2 G bit/s).

You can connect a 9-pin to either a 6-pin or 4-pin, but you'll need a converter cable instead of a plain A-to-B connection.