Hardware Support

Windows 2000 Professional supports the IEEE 1394 bus, which is designed for high-bandwidth devices, such as digital camcorders, digital cameras, digital VCRs, and storage devices. IEEE 1394 is a serial protocol supporting speeds ranging from 100 to 400 megabits per second (Mbps), depending on the implementation. It provides a high-speed Plug and Play-capable bus that eliminates the need for peripheral devices to have their own power supply, and provides support for isochronous data transfer.

You can connect up to 63 devices to one IEEE 1394 bus and interconnect up to 1023 buses to form a very large network with over 64,000 devices. Each device can have up to 256 terabytes of memory addressable over the bus. A built-in mechanism ensures equal access to the bus for all devices.