Adding FireWire to a laptop with no extension slots

Question

I'm looking for a way to add Firewire to my laptop, with the purpose of using FireWire audio interfaces. Since my laptop doesn't have an ExpressCard slot though, this means I'm open to the craziest ideas.

I'm currently looking at SATA. Now, I know there are USB/FireWire-to-SATA boxes that allow you to access as SATA drive over FireWire; but are there ones that work the other way around, creating a FireWire port through SATA by means of a special driver?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure you can't do Firewire over SATA. Lacking ExpressCard, your only option would be mini-PCIe, but that assumes that your laptop has a spare slot (or that you can give up your WLAN card):

Note that these are meant for mini-ITX and other small form-factor desktop motherboards (hence the standard PCI expansion bracket and Molex power connector). To get it working in a laptop, you'll have to figure out where to get power from, as well as get a panel-mount female Firewire connector and install it somewhere in your laptop.

On a related note, Firewire ports in laptops and laptop-compatible expansion cards usually use cheap controllers that can cause problems with real-time audio. Texas Instruments controllers, which most audio interface manufacturers recommend, are very hard to find. Combined with the difficulty of getting Firewire into your laptop in the first place, you may want to consider using USB instead.