Current FireWire 800 drivers limitation - confirmation needed
I just got a Seagate GoFlex Desk of 3TB USB3.0 ; I connected the device using an USB2.0 (happy the standard is still backward compatible) to see if the device is functioning.
Try it on the FireWire 800 adapter and I unhappily had to contact the Seagate support. They respond as follow :
I understand that you're having an issue getting the 3 TB Go Flex Desk to mount.
The reason for the Mac OS not recognizing the drive is because the Mac OS currently does not have the firewire 800 drivers that support drives that are over the 2 TB limit. This is unfortunately one of the limitations of the Mac operating system. At this time, Mac is currently working to develop firewire 800 drivers that support the larger hard drive size, but no information has been released by Apple, that we know of, as to when a driver update would become available.
Could I get confirmation as I couldn't find any knowledge base on that issue? I may have not used the proper keyword...
Thank you very much.
FA GoFlex Desk :
Capacité : 3 To (3 000 592 977 920 octets)
Support amovible : Oui
Disque amovible : Oui
Nom BSD : disk1
Identifiant du produit : 0x50a1
Identifiant du fournisseur : 0x0bc2
Version : 1.00
Vitesse : Jusqu’à 480 Mb/s
Fabricant : Seagate
Identifiant de l’emplacement : 0xfd100000
Courant disponible (mA) : 500
Courant requis (mA) : 0
Type de carte de partition : APM (Carte de partition Apple)
État S.M.A.R.T. : Non géré
Volumes :
Capacité : 262 Ko (262 144 octets)
Inscriptible : Non
Nom BSD : disk1s1
Aperture :
Capacité : 3 To (3 000 458 477 568 octets)
Disponible : 2,67 To (2 673 969 479 680 octets)
Inscriptible : Oui
Système de fichiers : HFS+ journalisé
Nom BSD : disk1s3
Point de montage : /Volumes/GoFlex
And to confirm, the USB does work without trouble.
Message was edited by: LMA1980
Similar Messages
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Firewire 800 intentionally limited to 400
With nothing but a FW800 drive plugged into any fw port, the drive is listed as capable of 800 speed, but communicating at 400. The system profiler shows a "phantom" unknown/unknown device, with a top speed of 400.
I dug out the IORegistryTools from the developers kit, and found the "unknown device" to be an IORegistryEntry, in the IOFirewireLocalNote with a listed max speed of "Ox2" (400) instead of "0x3" (800).
In short, the OS is intentionally limiting the max fw speed to 400, instead of its rated 800.
Why? How do I change that registry entry?
PPC G5 Quad running 10.5.1.Tracy, et al.,
While disconcerting, it does seem that this may be a "non-issue"...
I ran 3 benchmarking applications (AJA's Kona Test, Blackmagic's Disk Test, and the QuickBench from Intech's Speedtools) on two different FW800 enclosures. All three apps gave nearly identical results...
Single drive inside of a WiebeTech ToughTech: Average 50.3 MB/s read and 48.0 MB/s write.
(500 GB drive formatted with HFS+ Journaled)
Dual drives in a OWC Mercury Elite Pro-AL 800: Average 77 MB/s read and 54 MB/s write.
(2-400 GB drives formatted with HFS+ Journaled, in a RAID-0 Striped configuration)
The tests were done using 100+ MB test file sizes where available.
So, it seems that the speeds on my multiple-drive enclosure are reflective of those faster than FW400...
Well, at least maybe you can get Apple to consider changing the description of the "repeater device"...
Message was edited by: davemcc -
Hi guys, I'm new to Mac. I have a MacBook Pro 13" (late 2011) with Lion OS and Parallels 7 (Windows 7). My understanding is that there is FireWire connection / extension built in to the MacBook Pro already. I also have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex portable external hard drive 750GB USB2.0 and 3.0 (that can be used for PC and Mac). It states that the portable external harddrive is FireWire 800 compatible. The questions are (1) how does FireWire works ? (2) how do I use or activate FireWire 800 ? (3) is there any setup / setting changes I need to on my MacBook Pro ? (4) what FireWire adapter do I need to purchase to connect my portable external harddrive to my MacBook Pro ? Is it expensive ?
I read a few articles online but they are too technical for me. They mentioned something about FireWire adapter with 6 pins or 9 pins. Not sure what that means. I'm totally confused. So any help, advise or guidance will be much appreciated. In Layman's term would be better. Thanks.
How about Thunderbolt ? Is it compatible with the above external portable hard drive mentioned ? Do I need a Thunderbolt adapter for it ? How do I activate or use Thunderbolt ?Thanks, Clinton and Alberto.
The below link is the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex portable external hard drive (product code STAA750302) that I have. It states that it features USB 2.0 or 3.0 plug–and–play connectivity and easily upgradeable to USB 3.0, FireWire 800 or eSATA. It only comes with a 18-inch USB 3.0 / 2.0 backward compatible cable.
http://www.seagate.com/au/en/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/standard/ goflex/
Based on the above, my understanding is that I need to buy a FireWire 800 adapter to connect to the portable external hard drive so that I can use FireWire 800 with my MacBook Pro. Is this correct ? Do I need to get a separate cable as well or can I just use the 18-inch USB 3.0 / 2.0 backward compatible cable that was provided in the box ? If so, what sort of FireWire 800 cable do I need to get ? 9 pin to 9 pin ? 6 pin to 9 pin ? Or 4 pin to 9 pin ?
https://www.lindy.com.au/online/arrshop.exe?anonymous=true&cat=b1 -
Ext HD speed and Bus-Powered Firewire 800
After having gone through various External HD over the years, Firewire 800 (WD Studio with power adapter) is by far proving to be best in terms of connecting speed when handling my 350gb+ library.
However, lately, I was exploring the option of having a portable External HD drive with "bus-powered" port so that I don't have to rely on the power plug whenever I want to listen to iTunes library.
So, here are some questions...
1) Bus-powered Firewire 800 1TB - no experience with this before. all my firewire external drives had required power adapter, but during this search I just found out that such exists.
Can MBP Firewire 800 port provide enough power to spin 1TB external drive w/out a hiccup??
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go
2) Obviously for a smaller size drive with bus-powered option, I must go with 2.5" drive, which meant, I have either 1TB @ 5400rpm OR 750gb @ 7200rpm for MAX Storage option. I do want 1TB... BUT would 5400rpm / 7200rpm matter when it comes to iTunes library??
I ened up getting my current Firewire 800 external drive after experiencing lagging iTunes speed via USB 2.0 and Firewire 400. But later I found out that slow connecting (constant beach ball when selecting music) is typically resulted from having many playlists/id tags/etc.
So, I want to be sure before I get a new drive, I choose the right speed drive.
Btw, here is my current set up: MBP 13" (mid-2009), iTunes (10.1.2), 500gb 7200rpm internal drive, 8gb memory
Anyone experience with above set-up that I am thinking about??Welcome to Apple Discussions!
I wonder if there might be a problem with the firewire bridge in the WD? The most reliable Firewire chipset that I know of is the Oxford 924+, but not everybody uses these. You might be able to find out what is actually used on the WD web site.
Since the USB connection works, the WD drive itself is probably fine.
Does your FireWire 800 work properly with other devices? If not, or if you don't know, you could try a SMC reset, which may help if the problem is with the FireWire port on the MBP:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411?viewlocale=en_US
Otherwise, you could try the drive in a different enclosure, like the Mercury on the Go from OWC, which has the Oxford 934 chipset. I have WD drives in 3 of these enclosures, and have never had a problem with any of them.
Good luck! -
Here's the deal. Currently running SL 10.6.8 on a MAC Mini. Planning for eventual upgrade to ML. Have a 1TB external hard drive partitioned into two volumes, one volume for Time Machine and one volume for SL which I periodically update using Superduper. Thus I always have a point-in-time bootable backup on the external hard drive.
The MAC Mini supports Firewire 800. However, booting from my current external hard disk is pretty slow, since it only supports Firewire 400. I am considering buying an Iomega MiniMax which supports Firewire 800. Then, I would use the MiniMax as my bootable backup volume, and relegate the older hard drive to Time Machine.
So, question #1 is, can I daisychain the new MiniMax between the MAC Mini and my existing external hard drive? My expectation is that the new Mini Max would run using Firewire 800 and that the existing hard drive would run at Firewire 400 speed as it does today. If it doesn't (e.g., daisychaining in the Firewire 400 external disk with the MiniMax Firewire 800 external disk ends up running the whole leg at 400), my resolution will be to run the existing hard disk off an available USB port and have just the MiniMax running at Firewire 800.
Why am I going to all this trouble? That's question #2. I don't trust upgrades; they always break something. When I upgraded from 10.5.x to 10.6.x, the web directories got renamed, and all of my web apps 403'd until I figured out what happened. Plus, I have accounts for other family members, and in order to ensure their ability to use the computer during my upgrade process, I need to have the ability to fall-back quickly to a known-stable version of OSX. So what I'm trying to do is insulate myself from problems by partitioning the MiniMax into two volumes, taking a Superduper image of my current installation on the Mac Mini to MiniMax external drive volume 1, then upgrading to ML on the MAC Mini, and take a SuperDuper image of that to MiniMax external drive volume 2. Then, if the upgrade results in problems I can't resolve immediately, I can simply reimage the MAC Mini from MiniMax volume 1. BUT ...
... I've read that the ML installation creates a "service and support" partition that is different than the startup disk. I'm concerned that I won't be able to reimage the hard disk in the MAC Mini once I upgrade it to ML because of the partitioning changes it introduces on the startup disk. Theoretically, I +should+ be able to use the disk utility on my SL system to repartition the disk in the MAC Mini prior to reimaging it from my backup, but I'm considering the possibility that the new partition may be of a type that the SL disk utility cannot identify, and might therefore be unable to delete or even detect. So I'm hoping someone else has been down this road and can advise me. Even at Firewire 800 speeds, booting from an external disk is still going to be slow, so I want to be able to restore my SL image to the MAC Mini hard disk.
A little background on me. I work for a major disaster recovery provider. I used to have a Mac PRO G5, which I got used, and the first thing I did with it was install a second hard disk, SuperDupe an image from the first disk to the second, and made sure I could boot from the second. THEN I started using and customizing the MAC. I really feel vulnerable with the MAC Mini, since it only has the single internal hard drive - sort of like going out in public dressed only in a long T-shirt. So my whole thing is, I ABSOLUTELY MUST BE ABLE TO PUT THINGS BACK THE WAY THEY WERE before I do the migration to ML.
Obsessive-cumpulsive? Yep. Anal? You got it. That's why I'm in the DR business.You may have overloaded the port, following the instructions below it should reset:
+1. Shut down the computer.+
+2. Disconnect all devices and all other cables, except the keyboard and mouse cable(s).+
+3. Disconnect the computer from the power outlet and wait for 3 to 5 minutes.+
+4. Plug the computer back in and turn it on.+
+5. Reconnect the device(s) (one at a time if there is more than one) and test. Test with each port if you have more than one.+
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US -
I need a firewire-800 external drive tower
I currently have several external hard drives each individually connected via FireWire 800, all drives chained together via the FireWire 800 in-out connectors.
What I really need is a 4 or 5 bay hard drive external tower of some kind to reduce desktop clutter. And a tower that has FireWire 800.
I've found several 4 bay storage towers but that all are for RAID usage.
I don't need RAID. I'm not even sure if I could disable the RAID part, and just use the tower simply as external storage/expansion (which is what I want)?
I've read some of the user manuals on these RAID towers, and it seems the units are meant for RAID use only.
I don't know much about RAID, except that it mirrors one drive onto another as a safety backup.
Does anyone know where I can get an external 4 or 5 bay tower with FireWire-800 for extra storage only? No RAID needed.
Or... can the RAID towers just be used as external storage?
If so, how might the RAID feature be disabled? Or can it?I'd recommend you call OWC http://eshop.macsales.com
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What do I need to support my FireWire 800 gear on a new iMac
I need to replace my antique mac pro 1.1
I am now retired and my needs tend more towards games than av creation so the new Mac Pro is not only overkill but the dual video I here is not optimized for games in any case.
The problem is all of my existing FireWire 800 gear and no FireWire ports on the new iMac designs
I guess I need to buy an external thunderbolt case for the 4 2 terabyte drives in the old pro do any of the external T-bolt cases offer good FireWire 800 support (full speed support) for all of my old gear?
Are there other ways to support these devices than an external t-bolt case for sata drives?
And for a game playing iMac is a fusion drive or a large solid state drive best choice bearing in mind I will have about 10 terabytes of FireWire and t-bolt external storage ( I was thinking of making the drives in the required t-bolt external case a raid array for best performance)
So what external t-bolt drive case should I buy and if it does not support a set of FireWire 800 ports what external t-bolt gadget for that support should I buy?
ThanksWindshadow99 wrote:
I looked at those but would it not be far better to have a gadget that plugged into a t-bolt port and then had a bunch of FireWire 800 ports on it? There must be lots of folks that like me invested in FW800 gear with their older computers and need something like this.
Perhaps, though as with anything it depends on your needs. I don't know of any such device, though. All the Thunderbolt docks I've seen that have Firewire at all have only a single port. You could use a TBolt to FW adapter with Thunderbolt ports in a dock, though. A Firewire hub isn't a lot of good other than providing multiple connectors since all devices are on the same FW bus and hence not really much different from daisy-chaining. There's certainly no performance improvement and probably not much in the way of stability improvement either.
I was told a long time ago back in the mac 2fx sccsi days that daisy chaining things should be avoided and giving things their own pro was better does this advice sill hold good?
SCSI was very different (and usually wasn't a problem as long as it was terminated correctly). Daisy-chaining FW is different, though it very much depends on the devices and the sort of throughput you need. Daisy-chaining Thunderbolt should be no problem at all as long as the devices support it.
Regards. -
I have a Firewire 800 external hard drive and need to connect to my new MacBook Air. Where can I get the correct cable?
Apple has announced a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, but not yet given a release date.
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Hi. I have a Macbook Pro Model 5,5 with one 800 firewire port. I need to create two firewire 800 ports but only have an SD card slot (this is for video interface with 2 cameras). Is this possible or do I have to have an express card slot in order to do this?
Hi Jessica,
No, the SD slot will not work, you need an ExpressCard/34 slot.
I do not know if it works with cameras, but with two or more HDs, if the first one has two FW ports, you can "daisy chain" one or more additional HDs from it. -
I want to transfer data from my old Mac book pro to my new one using migrate. The old computer doesn't have Thunderbolt 2 and the new one doesn't have Firewire 800. Does the Thunderbolt to Firewire or the Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter work to connect them and transfer data?
Thank you!Yes, use a Firewire cable and the FW to Tbolt adaptor.
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Can I power an external ST91000640NS using FireWire 800?
Hi,
I am going to buy a new 17" MacBook Pro soon and I've been doing research on how to customize it when I get it. I want to install my own SLC SSD as the internal drive because it's cheaper and has a longer life expectancy. Because of the limited capacity of SSDs these days, I am also going to be getting an external HDD to keep all my data that would not benefit greatly from SSD speeds, as well as for backups of everything on the internal SSD.
I wanted this external HDD to meet three criteria:
1TB capacity
7200rpm speed
2.5" size, so that I can use it without needing to plug it into a power socket
There aren't many options to choose from that meet those requirements. In fact, I only found one candidate, the “Seagate Constellation.2”. It looks like a good set of specs and Seagate is a reputable hard disk maker I've read, so I'm just about ready to buy one. My only point of concern is whether it can be powered and operated solely over FireWire, or if I would have to use a power adapter.
So my question is, can the 17" MBP (Late 2011) supply enough watts/volts/amps over FireWire 800 in order to power this Seagate disk? (Sorry for rambling too much)
I have looked at the spec sheet and read up on IEEE 1394, i.e. FireWire, and I wasn't able to come up with a definitive answer, and I'm not even confident about how these electronics operate (specifically if the watt/volt/ampere requirements have to be met precisely or if they can go over or under a little, or a lot). I hope someone helps me out here.
Now here are the relevant specs, from the ST91000640NS product page:
12V start max current
0.85A
5V start max current
0.51A
Average idle power
2.95W
Average operating power
5.43W
According to Wikipedia's article on IEEE 1394, FireWire can supply a maximum of 45W and 30V.
Apple's FireWire Ports Specifications article says:
Input voltage range
8 to 33 V
Input power
0.3 W
Output voltage range
12 V to 30 V (varies by product)
Output power
minimum of 7 W per port
The disk will be put in an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini enclosure, by the way. (Though I don't think that matters.)Kappy may be right — he most often is. But the Constellation is an enterprise drive designed for continuous use in servers, not for bus-powered use as an external drive. Among currently-available 1TB notebook drives, the kind that are normally used in bus-powered portable external enclosures, there are none that run at 7200 RPM, so I assume that's why you've settled on the Constellation. My concern about your plan is twofold: first, the drive is 15mm high. Will it fit in the enclosure you've selected? Ask OWC. And second, because the Constellation is normally run on AC power without any amperage ceiling that it's likely to exceed, I wonder whether during spinup or heavy usage it will occasionally draw more power than your FireWire bus can supply, causing it to be automatically powered off. I'm not conversant enough with electrical specs to be able to tell whether that's a possibility. Perhaps Kappy is.
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What FireWire 800 drive (2.5") to build/buy for MacBook Pro?
Hello community, this topic is to request a little help choosing a FireWire 800 storage solution. About once every two days, I need to run a virtual machine, either Windows XP or Ubuntu. The disk image is currently located on an external USB 2.0 Western Digital hard drive, which is also used for not-speed-sensitive storage. Performance is decent, as long as I quit all possible application before launching (I have 4GB RAM, planning on 8GB upgrade very soon) and don't launch too many apps in the virtual machine, however, I feel performance is lagging since I can see the virtual hard drive indicator turning red most of the time, and the 4 white LEDs on the WD going back and forth (although it doesn't necessarily indicate heavy activity). Especially, restoring to and from saved states routinely takes 45 seconds or more. The external drive is about 90% full most of the time, and may be a contributing factor to the slow feeling. Hence, I thought about putting this FireWire 800 port to good use, and plug a compatible drive in it. I had the following requirements:
3-year warranty an absolute minimum, 5 years
would be ok (my current WD MyPassport has 5). Reason is I consider if manufacturers trust their drive for 5 years, it shouldn't be a source of worry for many years to come. I consider 2-year warranty to be substandard drives.
2.5" form factor. Reason is I rarely happen to have enough room or steady power to lay and plug a full 3.5" drive, unless it uses a battery, which is extremely rare and would add bulk in my bag.
Ability to saturate FW800 port. I think a more performant drive would be a waste of money since they constantly go down in price, and I may be able to get a better deal by the time I switch to Thunderbolt-based MacBook Pro. Admittedly, this is a "soft" requirement, given expected use.
Under $150 (would come to $170 tax,S&H included)
I understand pretty well that the two latter points come in opposition and need a compromise, so I think a large compromise on drive size is to be expected. So far, I thought about these solutions:
Fully manufactured, i.e. Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex + FW800 dongle. Major drawback: dongle is expensive, and appears to use a proprietary connector. If it breaks, impossible to replace it quickly. Alternative: LaCie Rugged (pretty big for a 2.5" drive), G-Tech (usually quite expensive).
Handmade from performance platter drives, i.e. Western Digital Scorpio Black + FW800 enclosure. Major drawback: wouldn't saturate a FW800 port since it comes in SATA300 flavor only, but I get the strong feeling it would perform better than many manufactured drives.
Handmade from SSD, i.e. Corsair + FW800 enclosure. Major drawback: from this page, major compromises would have to be made on capacity. Affordable SSDs seem to be limited to 40 or 60GB, and while I don't put capacity as a priority, I may have to use the high-performance drive for other tasks, such as editing short high-def movies, or add a third virtual machine. Considering the Windows virtual drive needs to be around 15GB, and 25 for Ubuntu, 60GB wouldn't leave enough elbow room.
What solution would be better advisable, and what arguments would you put forth for it?Reply on a dead topic:
After a word, Macally used the Oxford chipset. So Macally I went, and put a Scorpio Black 500GB inside. Ran fine, but I got it stolen in a coffee shop a few days after I started to use it. Had no time yet to do a backup, so data was lost. Surveillance cams weren't working at the time of the theft, nobody has seen anything, and, as usual, police won't do anything about it.
Second drive I got was also a Scorpio Black I put inside the Mercury Mini enlosure from OWC. Marginal difference experienced from the Macally, but most recent Oxford chipset would ensure fewer head parkings, that are very noisy and unsettling, so much I thought there was something wrong with the drive, and still think there is, despite reassurance from Western Digital.
The mobile drive I happen to use is the lesser-performance G-Drive from Hitachi, a 750GB version. -
Canon 550D connecting to MacBook Pro via FireWire 800
As far as I know, my MacBook Pro (MacBookPro8,1) has a FireWire 800 port. My Canon 550D / Rebel T2i has a combined A/V output and a mini HDMI port. I've been looking around online about a cable that would allow me to connect these 2 together via Firewire (required by Adobe OnLocation). I'm asking here because I'm assuming that someone here is bound to know something about compatible FireWire cables for my MacBook and my DSLR in order to use the software. My knowledge goes as far as needing to know if the MacBook and the DSLR ports are 4-pin or 6-pin. I don't know how to tell and I can't find this information about my MacBook Pro.
So, the question is: how can you tell how many pins my MacBook's FireWire port requires? And if someone can confirm, is it possible to connect these two things?I can only answer part of your question. Your SLR has mini HDMI and a mini USB out. Your MBP has three ways to connect: USB, FW 800 (9 pin) and Thunderbolt (which is ao far supported by a limited number of devices).
As far as I know, you will not be able to use On Location with the Canon. But I could be wtong. Good places to ask are the Adobe forums and Canon forums.
Good luck.
Russ -
How many external drives per Firewire 800 bus?
I am the proud owner of a new Mac Pro, which comes with only one FW 800 bus. I have 4 1T G-Tech FW drives (2 for video media) that I've daisy-chained, and I know their performance is suffering because of it. I'd like to remedy that.
Question 1: Is it optimal to have only one of these drives running on each bus? Can I get away with two per bus without serious loss of efficiency? Can I assume that 2 per will run better than 4 per?
Question 2: For the price that OWC is selling the Sonnet Tango 800 PCI-E card (about $110), is there another card I should be considering, or is the Tango 800 considered good?
Thanks.
Girautgiraut wrote:
videocrafter,
not to presume on your time more than i already have -- what a helpful reply you gave. thanks! -- but i just want to make absolutely sure of one thing:
i buy the esata pci-e card you mention from OWC and install it myself (probably pretty easy) and then just plug my G-Tech drives into it, and I'm good to go? No separate esata controller card? I just realized that only two of my four G-Tech drives have the esata connection, so I could plug those two in, leave the other two with my FW 800 connection and save up for a couple more G-Tech drives with the esata connection. And this will make my life better.
Correct?
many, many thanks.
giraut
Hi giraut, your welcome
That is correct, you will not need any additional controller card. You will have to install the driver for the Tempo E4P (make sure you follow the installation instructions) and you'll want to make sure you download the latest driver from Sonnet's website:
http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=338#position_content
and unless you have some application monitoring for new upgrades, I would check at least once a month if not more often for any new future drivers. They are suppose to be coming out with one here soon to support 64 Bit. Even though FCP does not yet support 64 bit if you choose to run other applications in 64 bit you don't want your eSATA controller to cause any problems.
You'll also need One external shielded eSATA data cables with "I-Shape" connectors for each device you connect to the card. So in your case, you'll need 2 right away. Here is the type of cable you need, it just happens to be made by Sonnet, but you can find cheaper ones (just remember, you get what you pay for).
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/TCBSATA11/
There is one bit of insight I would like to give you when swapping any of your internal drives around once you have this card installed. It probably tells you in the owners manual, and I just stopped reading once I got it up and running. However I found out the hard way. The first time that I swapped out one of the "Internal" drives (I swapped out the drive in bay 3 I think it was, makes no difference which bay I'm sure) but I simply shut down my system, unplugged the computer and swapped out the drive. When I started back up, I things didn't' seem right, it wasn't seeing my external drives properly and I got a panic attack (both the computer and me!). Of course my first thought was "YOU'VE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!" So after I took a deep breath, before turning the computer back on, I disconnected my external enclosure, then restarted and everything was find. I then completely shut down, turned on my enclosure and restarted. All was good. I tested my theory again and swapped out another internal drive and all went like clockwork. Here are the exact steps I took. They worked for me, and maybe they will work for someone else, so I'll list them here:
Swapping Internal Drive
1. Eject each external drive from the enclosure and power down the enclosure.
2. Eject and power down the FireWire drive.
3. Power down the computer and swap out drives.
4. With the external enclosures powered off, power up the computer as normal.
5. Accomplish another shut-down.
6. Make sure all of the drives are installed into the enclosure, turn on the power.
7. Power up the computer and keep your fingers crossed.
Personally I've never daisy-chained Firewire drives (although I find it fascinating that Patrick had 19 of them daisy-chained) if I did I would probably only use them for archiving since I capture and edit everything in ProRes 422, but that's another thread. I currently only have one device that I use via firewire 800 which is my external Blu-ray burner. An interesting note here. I initially had my Blu-ray burner connected to my former piece of junk eSata controller card (with the Silicon Image SiI3124 chip and drivers that haven't been updated since before Leopard came out) but for whatever reason, the Tempo E4P wasn't seeing it (Now I'm not sure why, and frankly I didn't take the time to troubleshoot it, so it may be nothing) I just went ahead and connected the burner up as Firewire 800, and connected my 3rd external eSata device (a OWC Mercury Elite Pro USB/Firewire/eSata drive) to port 2 of my Tempo E4P, with my 5 drive bay FirmTek/5PM eSata enclosure connected to port 1 of the E4P (leaving 2 open ports on the E4P).
So, If I were you, for now I would go ahead and daisy-chain those other 2 Firewire drives, unless I needed to use them to capture and edit in anything other than DV, or for archiving only. Otherwise, I would get another 5 bay enclosure and take those 2 SATA drives out of those 2 existing firewire enclosures (Im assuming they are SATA drives inside their enclosure, I would surely think so) and put them in the external eSata enclosure.
One last ti-bit of information that may or may not be useful. When you get an external 5 bay enclosure with the port Multiplier, pay a little extra for a brand that you can trust. Personally, since I already have one, I would stick with the SeriTek SATA5PM (their built like a tank!), or go with a Sonnet, OWC has a new price on their Fusion D500P that's pretty appealing. I would definitely be cautious if wanting to purchase anything for a specific company with the word "Cool" in their name, the only thing that is cool, and it's only cool for them is they get your money and you get .... well you know!
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA5PM/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/FUSD5P00TBR/
Just in case anyone is wondering, I get no compensation in any fashion for any of the items that I have specifically linked to in this post. These items are simply ones that I have carefully done my homework on, and if it can save someone else a little time by helping them with their homework, then that makes me feel good. I'm all for helping others save time, it's the most precious resource we have.
Message was edited by: videocrafter -
Are there any indications that Apple may move away from Firewire 800 on future (Intel) PowerMacs towards SATA drives?
The problem I'm seeing with the external drives is
that a few vendors (e.g., WiebeTech) offer drives
that either interface with SATA or Firewire 800, but
not both. So if I buy the Firewire 800 version now, I
cannot use it with a SATA interface in the future.
And if I buy the SATA interface version now and a
SATA interface card for my current (older version)
G5, I will need to buy a new SATA interface when I
replace my G5. Time for a decision...
If you go with FW800 you are buying expensive technology that uses a chipset that changes frequently. You need to experience losing data with a Mac OS X update - that causes problems with FireWire before you can appreciate the simplicity of external SATA.
In addition, FW800 usually marries you to old IDE drives that will be useless when you finally realize how much better SATA is for speed and reliability. You cannot use IDE drives with FW800 except with extremely expensive enclosures that perform slower than SATA.
The fact that you may have to use your SATA setup on the old system until new drivers or SATA host adapter cards are available for the new system is not much of a drawback compared to having to replace all of your IDE hard drives with SATA drives when you finally make the move to external SATA.
FW800 is where I use to be, but its slower, unreliable with upgrades, expensive and uses old IDE drives that don't make sense buying anymore. Why buy into dead end hard drive technology when SATA is the present and future?
Michael
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