cd writers

I am ready to buy now and have decided on Lacie. But a dilemna remains.

Should it be firewire Lacie or USB 2.0 Lacie?

I have USB 1.0 so could save money and not have to buy a pc card and then if it was too slow I could buy a usb pc card.

Or, I could get the firewall pc card right off the bat to go with the firewall drive.

Which would be more useful in the long run, to have a firewire card or a usb card?

Also, how slow would it be on 1.0?

Also, I have 333mhz and I think the system requirements call for 350. Will I be ok?

I bought a combo USB 2.0 and firewire card at Fry's for $40, which was as cheap as any single-type card I saw elsewhere. USB 2.0 is faster than firewire (480 million bits per second vs. 400 Mbps). USB 1.1 is 12 Mbps so you will likely find it too slow, especially if you're filling CDs. I'd go with the combo card and the USB burner, in case you get a firewire device in the future (camcorders seem more likely to use this than USB 2.0).

My advice was based on you owning a PC, by the way (since you said pc card) but looking upthread it seems you have a Mac. The combo card I mentioned says it can be put into Macs but won't give USB 2.0 performance unless you have OS X 10.1. It's a D-Link DFB-A5 PCI card.

I have decided to go for the ethernet. Assuming I fix my other computer woes, which of these similarly priced Lacie drives should I get?

This one:

http://www.jandr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1&Product_Id=3953876

Or this one: (which is the one they sell at the Apple store)

http://www.jandr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Section_Id=1&Product_Id=3674954

option one, its cheaper.

I got the Lacie firewire Porsche CD.RW plus the Unibrain firewire notebook card at Tekserve today, with design help from Carey. I burned my first CD with no problem at all, so I recommend the above.