StarTech.com 3 Port 2b 1a Low Profile 1394 PCI Express FireWire Card Adapter

Product Overview

AI-generated summary

If you still have some workstation or industrial kit that expects **FireWire (IEEE 1394)**, this StarTech PCIe adapter can be a sensible, low-cost fix. At **£52.19 ex-VAT**, you’re mainly paying for “it works” rather than any fancy networking performance. In real deployments, these cards are usually about keeping legacy devices alive—think video capture decks, certain imaging/DAQ gear, or specific peripherals that never moved off FireWire. If that’s your situation, I’d say it’s good value: you avoid the cost/risk of replacing hardware just to restore connectivity.

That said, I wouldn’t buy this for anything “networking” in the normal sense—FireWire isn’t a general-purpose network upgrade, and you’ll only benefit if you already have FireWire devices. Also, the success of these adapters depends heavily on your motherboard/slot support and what OS you’re running; older drivers and Windows versions can be the make-or-break factor. If you need this for Windows and your environment is locked down, it’s worth sanity-checking driver compatibility before ordering. For a legacy FireWire lifeline: yes. For anything modern that expects Ethernet/Wi‑Fi: absolutely not.