Belkin FireWire 6-Port Hub

I was looking all over for a FireWire splitter and this one does a great job. I am a video editor and need lots of FireWire ports. I have 3 external Hard Drives and my video camera running through this port and I can say it works perfectly. I use an Apple G5 and Final Cut, this product has helped me get the info I need onto my drives all while hooked into the same drive. As my monitor and G5 were running out of FireWire ports this literally saved the day for all my video needs. If you use FireWire a lot, and only use FireWire drives and cameras then this is a must by. I just wish I would have known about it sooner.

I have purchased two of these Firewire hubs. They have worked fine with several Western Digital 500GB MyBooks and LaCie 250GB and 500GB Porsche drives connected to an Intel Mac mini, a Mac PowerPC G4, and a Mac Dual PowerPC G5. All computers were running Mac OS X Tiger. I could not see any performance drop-off when using the hub with one device. (Duplication of a 500-MB blank disc image file on a 250GB LaCie Porsche drive took 30 sec whether the cable was connected directly or indirectly via the Belkin hub to an Intel duo-core Mac mini.) One warning though: do not connect or disconnect a cable to any Firewire port while burning a DVD on an external Firewire optical drive. You will abort the process with an "unstable interface" error and get a disc only suitable as a coaster!

Locks up my intel mac pro running snow leopard instantly every time it is plugged in or out. Wedged hard such that the machine is not even reachable by network for a clean restart. Must be hard reset by power-off. Save all documents, and be prepared for instant death when you bring this unit anywhere near your computer. If you enjoy living dangerously and are planning to install this on a mac, be sure to shutdown your machine first, plug in the device, then reboot. Given that, it seems to work. Also, comes packaged in the worst kind of blister pack that requires great care to open without tremendous risk to life and limb. If there were any viable alternative, I would investigate it seriously. Have to say, while the details may differ, this is pretty typical of the level of quality delivered by anything I have gotten from Belkin in many years. I'll give it two stars because, if you are desperate, and very, very careful, it can be made to work, and you may still have all your fingers.

I guess I should have read the reviews here, more carefully. I have a Mac Mini that I'm using as the hub for my home net: it is attached to the TV and it hosts a huge RAID drive. I thought it would be perfect to use for iChats with the parents, using an old firewire iSight camera I have lying around. Since the RAID is firewire and there's only one firewire port, no joy. When I saw this little device, I jumped on it. Not only did it not get the iSight working, but, while attached, it appears to have corrupted the RAID drive including 20 years of music and video (all legal, thank you very much). Bummer dude. There are comments, elsewhere, here, about "hub compatibility" etc, which probably explain the issue. Whatever. ... and it might work perfectly in some applications. Having it kill my hard drive, though, with no warning, gets it one star. I just wish there were a way to assign it about -2.

The device works as advertised but is better suited for hard drives than audio interfaces. The audio never cut out, but the noise level probably increased 300-500%. Even without playback and the volume quite low there is an obvious hissing sound. It sounds almost exactly like playing an audio tape. There were no other devices on the hub except a Presonus Firebox. I tried several ports and several cables to no avail. I'm giving it 3/5 stars because I had intended to use it for Firewire audio + Firewire hard drive with my Mac mini. But I'm sure it's great with firewire drives.

I use firewire for my seagate hard drives, this product has worked great so far. There is always more USB ports with the mac computer, so this 6-port hub is a great solution. Fast, Easy to install and worked for my hard drives right away. This is a great product!

This is an excellent way to extend your camera's firewire connection. It comes with a power supply and a cable to connect it to the computer. You plug in your current cable into the Belkin and your camera (or any other firewire hardware). I am a professional photographer and use it daily with no problems.

Finding Firewire 400 is getting harder. I read all the previous reviews and researched in general on Firewire brands. Mine was a F5U526-APL. When I went onto the Belkin site the latest iteration is a F5U526-APL-S. I'm using the F5U526-APL as a powered Hub connected to a Quicksilver G4 and an External Firewire DVD Burner and an external Firewire Drive. At first, when I powered on the new Hub. the external firewire drive showed up as unknown device. The Burner mounted with no issues. i Googled immediately, found commentary from other experienced Firewire users who suggested power down, unplug all cords, and cables for a PMU reset. I followed their advice. I waited an hour then powered everything back on. The Belkin Hub mounted both the Firewire external drive and the Burner. No more issues. I'll be watching to see how long the Belkin Hub lasts. I predict it'll do better than the IoGear USB/Firewire Hub that burned out its Firewire capacity in six months and then the entire Hub USB included fried after a year.

My macbook pro wouldn't recognize my old cannon ZR100 DV camera (records to minidv tape). Using this powered hub it now recognizes the camera and I can capture video with the addition of a 9pin to 6pin cable. This article lead me to this fix: [...]