“The absence of FireWire ports is certainly an inconvenience for some users. But it shouldn’t be considered a deal-breaker for most of us, anyway,” Peter Cohen writes for Macworld.
“FireWire has long been the preferred interface for some Mac users who want to hook up an external hard disk drive. It also caught on with camcorder makers, and that’s really why most people are upset. A lot of standard-definition (SD) video cameras have relied on FireWire for the past few years… FireWire also comes in handy if you’re transferring large amounts of data between machines,” Cohen writes. “A special operating mode called Target Disk Mode (TDM) lets you reboot your laptop (or other FireWire-equipped Mac) to appear to the host machine as a storage device.”
“Setting up a new computer? FireWire TDM is good for that, too. Apple’s Migration Assistant makes it a lead pipe cinch to transfer your user account information, data and applications to a computer connected using TDM,” Cohen writes. “But Migration Assistant also works computer-to-computer if you have an Ethernet cable, which is more readily available and cheaper than a FireWire cable. And new MacBooks—as well as most Macs that have been shipping for the past several years—have Gigabit Ethernet ports on them.”
“Connecting a camcorder is, admittedly, a bit trickier. And this is certainly a sticking point for the many Mac users who want to edit their own video [but] it may be an opportunity for you to upgrade your camcorder,” Cohen suggests.
Cohen writes, “FireWire’s absence is certainly disappointing and will surely be felt for a while by Mac users who had invested in peripherals that use the interface, but I suspect most people will make the transition, and will ultimately find that they’re not missing much by making the switch.”
Much more in the full article here.