How do I set up a firewire network?

[rhegedus]

I have a PC and a laptop that are hard wired to a ADSL router, but I'm not overly impressed with the file transfer speeds over the LAN (13 minutes for a 4Gb iso).

Both are equipped with firewire ports and I have the cables.

How do I do it?

[MOVIEGEEK]

You would have to get a hub with firewire output but I would say that 13mins for 4GB is impressive.

[rhegedus]

Could I not just connect the PC to the laptop directly with a firewire cable?

[painkiller]

You would need what is called a "crossover" cable in order to connect directly from one computer to another without using a hub.

[rhegedus]

Even with firewire?

[MOVIEGEEK]

Yes but from what I've read you will still be limited to 100Mbps and firewire cables are more expensive than ethernet.

[rhegedus]

OK, thanks for the help guys.

[cpotoso]

NO NO NO.

Rewgular Firewire cable CAN be used to connect two PC's, no problem. You just have to enable the firewire network (it is doable in XP, and probably OSX and in Linux, but I do not know how it is done).

And firewire cable is not very expensive, but can only be used for short distances (ca. 1m, not tens of meters as ethertnet).

[painkiller]

It may be that you do not need a crossover cable (I do know that you would for ethernet, however).

Since your computer details indicate you are using XP Pro (on both machines?) then you can follow the instructions at:

http://www.tweakxp.com/article37601.aspx

Even so, the overall speed for firewire (1394a) is 400Mbps.
USB 2.0 is rated at 480.
Next gen firewire (1394b) is 800 Mbps.

[cpotoso]

Note that the speed comparision between 1394a and USB2 are BURST SPEEDS. In sustained speeds 1394a is vastly superior to USB2. I do not know why this is (someone said USB is not bus master, whereas 1394a is, but I am not sure if this is correct). Furthermore with USB one needs a special device to bridge the 2 computers. With 1394a a regular cable works, no need for additional devices.

[piano632]

Supposedly you can simply use 1 firewire cable between 2 PC's and it should work (if both computers are using WinXP). By coincidence, I tried doing this today. The 1394 connection seems to be working but... each computer shows itself under the network, but the other computer is not there! I've tried everything I can think of, but the opposite computer will not show up as part of the network. This is supposed to work on both Home and Pro editons of WinXP (I have Home). If someone gets this to work, please post how you did it.

[LloydAZ]

Supposedly you can simply use 1 firewire cable between 2 PC's and it should work (if both computers are using WinXP). By coincidence, I tried doing this today. The 1394 connection seems to be working but... each computer shows itself under the network, but the other computer is not there! I've tried everything I can think of, but the opposite computer will not show up as part of the network. This is supposed to work on both Home and Pro editons of WinXP (I have Home). If someone gets this to work, please post how you did it.

XP Home Edition has always been a dog to network!

I had a home edition PC on our network at work and it couldn't talk to anything using standard TCP/IP. I had to install NWLINK on it and my server before I could do anything. Needless to say, home edition got wiped off of the machine and professional got installed.

[rallynavvie]

Or you can go pick up a gigabit switch for $40 and exchange files even faster than FireWire 800 using Cat5/Cat6 cables at lengths of 100 feet or more. Just need to make sure your laptop and desktop support GbE. I traded up to it and would never go back to 10/100.

And if neither machine supports GbE and you still want to upgrade you could just get a second GbE NIC for both and use the crossover between them. It'll be a lot easier and cleaner to go the GbE switch though.

[doppletwo]

Supposedly you can simply use 1 firewire cable between 2 PC's and it should work (if both computers are using WinXP). By coincidence, I tried doing this today. The 1394 connection seems to be working but... each computer shows itself under the network, but the other computer is not there! I've tried everything I can think of, but the opposite computer will not show up as part of the network. This is supposed to work on both Home and Pro editons of WinXP (I have Home). If someone gets this to work, please post how you did it.

XP Home Edition has always been a dog to network!

I had a home edition PC on our network at work and it couldn't talk to anything using standard TCP/IP. I had to install NWLINK on it and my server before I could do anything. Needless to say, home edition got wiped off of the machine and professional got installed.

I haven't set up a firewire network, but with ethernet on with XP you need to run the network wizird on both computers so that they recognize each other.


You say you tried everything, but you don't mention wahat you tried.

[piano632]

You say you tried everything, but you don't mention wahat you tried.

OK, maybe not everything, but...

I've tried setup wizard on both computers multiple times.
I've tried 4-to-6 pin and 6-to-6 pin firewire cables.
I've tried "repair this connection" and get an error that it can't clear ARP cache.
I've tried restarting both computers.
I've tried changing firewall settings.

It says 1394 connection is enabled at 400 Mbps but the other PC doesn't show up under "view workgroup computers".

[edDV]

FWIW:

I have a IEEE-1394 connection running point to point. I don't recall how I set it up.

A large file transfer seems to peak at a sustained rate of ~60Mb/s (60%) on the 100Base-T link and at ~100Mb/s (26%) on the IEEE-1394 link. At least the IEEE-1394 link transfers twice as fast as through the 100Base-T switch.

I plugged in the IEEE-1394 cable without rebooting. To wake the connection up, I temporarily disconnected the Ethernet switch and then made a file copy to the other machine. XP networking then used the IEEE-1394 link. This machine has XP pro, the other has XP home.

[piano632]

Does it matter if both computers have a C letter drive, but names of drives are different?

[edDV]

It behaves like any other network connection.

drive is addressed as \\compname\drivename


I'd like to find out how to get the IEEE-1394 link utilization higher than 26%.

[piano632]

This is my first attempt at a network, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance on the subject. All I am really trying to do is use my 2nd computer like an external enclosure and transfer files to it. Both PC's are running WinXP Home. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or XP Home just doesn't do well with networks.

[InXess]

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong but 1st thing on a list would be to enable sharing by right clicking on a drive (or folder) and going to sharing tab. Only then you will see the other PC. If sharing is not enabled it won't work. Just like with regular network. I have both enabled FW and Ethernet, no issue whatsover.

[piano632]

Already enabled the file sharing, but both PC's can only see their own drives/folders.

This probably doesn't matter, but one of the PC's has firewire built-in (NEC chipset), the other has a PCI card (Texas Instruments chipset - actually it's a DV capture card but it works with normal everyday data too).

[InXess]

Then 2 possible issues: either a bad cable or, if OK, kill firewall on both PC's.