FireWire 800 unecessary for DV editing...BUT...

[Gromit137]

... how about file transfers... better?

I just bought a decent laptop ... 2.53 ghz.... 250gb ... 3gb ram...

would firewire 800 expresscard improve backups, etc.

Thanks in advance.

[minidv2dvd]

if the laptop has the typical 5400rpm hard drive then no. if it has a 7200rpm drive maybe a slight little bit.

[Soopafresh]

I found firewire 800 slower than regular USB 2.0 for backups to an external hard drive. Firewire 400 is relatively peppy and uses less CPU than USB 2

[edDV]

What editing are you doing? How is your Frewire 400 maxing out?

Firewire 800 (800 Mb/s or 100MB/s in theory, more like 50-60MB/s in reality) is too slow for uncompressed HD but too fast for most all laptop drives to keep up.

So what is the point?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Be aware that if you should hang a DV camcorder off the interface along with a fast (800Mbps) drive then the inteface will drop its speed to that of the camcorder's interface (often 100Mbps).