External Firewire Harddrive Suggestions

I have a new macbook pro and want to use an external harddrive through the 800 port for recording and loading samples. Probably a 1 or 1.5 TB size.
Can I get some suggestions of what firewire harddrive brands seem to be most compatible with the macbook pros?
thanks!

Try OWC. Or you can DIY:
Although you can buy a complete external drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets especially for Firewire drives (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
Buy.Com
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

Similar Messages

Power Mac G4 and external FireWire Harddrive

I can't connect my external harddrive anymore to the PowerMac G4 nor to the PowerBook G4. The harddrive-volumes are not shown in the Finder nor on the desktop.
Can anyone help?
iMac 2,16 GHz, 2GB, 500GB; PowerBook G4 12''; PowerMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hi!
Does the drive appear in the System Profiler? If not, you might try removing the drive from the enclosure and check if the Mac "sees" the device when mounted internally.
You might boot to your OS 9 install disk and try using Drive Setup to erase/initialize/zero the drive, too.
I suspect that DiskWarrior might not be able to see the drive either. You may be able to connect it to a PC, which won't recognize the Mac format and may give you the opportunity to initialize the drive. If this is the case, initialize it in PC format, then connect it to the G4, which should enable you to re-initialize it using Mac OS Extended. If this is successful, then use the Erase option to write zeros to the drive and you should have a clean drive again.
Gary

Initializing external firewire harddrive in Mac OS 10.2

I recently bought a Lacie firewire external hard drive. The instructions say to use apple's disk utilities to initialize the drive in Mac OS Extended. How can I access the disk utilities in OS 10.2? I've done this before with other drives, but I can't remember where to find the disk utilities now. I've run a search, but can't locate the disk utilities on my computer.
Thanks for your help!

Double-click on your hard disk's icon in the Finder; next, open the Applications folder followed by Utilities. The Disk Utility application should be located here. If it isn't, use Pacifist to extract it from the Mac OS X 10.28 combo updater.
(11608)

Install XP on External FireWire Hard Drive

Can someone help me install Windows XP onto an External, FireWire, Hard Drive? I can format and partition the drive with the XP CD, but it won't install XP onto the drive.
It says something about access rights and BIOS or CMOS. I don't think Macs have either a BIOS or a CMOS. I've tried correcting disk permissions with Disk Utility, but it wouldn't do it. It probably doesn't have access.
So does any body know how to do this?

Hi Megabyte,
sad to say but Windows can not be installed to an external Firewire Harddrive.
And this is not a OSX BootCamp issue, but 'designed' by Microsoft to not be doable.
Only way I know is with an USB connected external harddisk and described here: http://tubeshards.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/install-windows-to-a-macintosh-usb-dr ive/
regards
Stefan

Will I notice a significant performance drop if I run my Imac 8,1(early 2008) direct from an external firewire 800 Harddrive

Will I notice a significant performance drop if I run my Imac 8,1(early 2008) direct from an external firewire 800 Harddrive

I notice quite a difference in two of my externals because of that (the 5400 rpm drive was a warranty replacement and I had no idea it wouldn't be 7200 rpm - but that's another subject.....).

External Firewire Hard Drive is not recognized

Hello
I have a LaCie External Firewire Hard Drive (like this one (http://www.lacie.com/us/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10105). Since it uses a fireware 400 cable, I bought a FireWire 800-400 adapter, the one from moshi that is sold in the mac store.
I have tried connecting it to both ports in the external harddrive, connecting and disconnecting and still is not recognized. Any idea and suggestions?
I already tried in another computer, with windows xp, and the hard drive works.
Thanks.

Hi, oops, I have more than 1 mac & I apologize for assuming you are a multiple mac owner..
You could visit your local Apple Store or Local Apple Approved Service Agent.
You could try connecting via USB if your external HD has the capability, it could also be a bad cable.
You can check the Finder -> Preferences & the Show These Items..
You can reboot with the Ext HD connected & see if it shows up on your d/top...L

Can't see firewire harddrive on mini 10.4

It all started with the dang cat.   for some feline reason she had to spray a disconnected external maxtor 1 touch firewire harddrive.
I removed it from the external case, cleaned up the cat residue and put it back together. As far as I could tell the cat liquid only was on the case and outside of the harddrive.   One week later I decided to fire it up.
Daisy chained it into another harddrive that is always plugged in to my 10.4 mac mini.
turned it all on.
Started to smell like electical from the cat's harddrive so I pulled the power plug.
Since then I cannot see my external harddrive(s)
after searching in forum I did
SMC reset of unplugging everything,shutting down and holding the power button for 5 seconds while power cable disconnected.
restarting.
Rest Pram got the multiple startup chimes
Profile states that
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed:          Up to 400 Mb/sec
I have a mac pro laptop 10.4 also    do I dare plug the harddrive into it to see if ilt works or will I kill my firewire in that too?
phew    this rescue cats are trouble!
Any help suggestions welcome
Thanks in advance
Barry

do I just try dragging out the maxtors and put them in a new enclosure?
Yep, assuming they're SATA Drives.
On my no buy list is any Firewire drive made by any HDD manufacturers, good drives & bad cases, also...
The WD My Books have had far less than glowing reviews for Macs...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1543028
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2191614&tstart=0
http://x704.net/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3219&p=42023&hilit=western+digital#p420 23
http://x704.net/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2939&p=34120&hilit=western+digital#p3412 0
The following external hard drives are bootable on Intel-based Macintosh computers systems through USB:
• My Book Essential Edition
• My Book Essential Edition 2.0
• My Book Home Edition
• My Book Mirror Edition
• My Book Office Edition
• My Book Premium Edition
• My Book Premium Edition II
• My Book Premium ES Edition
• My Book Pro Edition
• My Book Pro Edition II
• My Book Studio Edition
• My Book Studio Edition II
• My Passport Studio
The following external hard drives are bootable on Intel-based Macintosh computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b):
• My Book Home Edition
• My Book Mirror Edition
• My Book Office Edition
• My Book Premium Edition
• My Book Premium Edition II
• My Book Pro Edition
• My Book Pro Edition II
• My Book Studio Edition
• My Book Studio Edition II
• My Passport Studio
The following external hard drives are bootable on Power PC based Macintosh computers systems through FireWire (1394a/b):
• WD My Book Premium Edition
• WD My Book Pro Edition
The following external hard drives are not bootable on Power PC based Macintosh computers systems through USB/FireWire 1394(a/b):
• My Book Essential Edition
• My Book Essential Edition 2.0
• My Book Home Edition
• My Book Mirror Edition
• My Book Office Edition
• My Book Premium Edition II
• My Book Pro Edition II
• My Book Studio Edition
• My Book Studio Edition II
• My Passport Studio
• My Passport Elite
• My Passport Essential
• WD Passport
• WD Passport (Silver)

Firewire Harddrive

I just purchased a Macbook pro and am quite happy with it.
I am looking at getting an external harddrive for it. First thing I have the 15.4 inch, 1 GIG, 2.0 Ghz (so only has one Firewire 400 port)
One thing I was curious about was if I get a firewire harddrive can I capture Video directly to the external Harddrive? Or since the hard drive is using the firewire port I must first capture to the internal harddrive then copy later to the External Drive?
I was looking at this drive on the apple site: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/wo/1.RSLID?mco= CE99ACF4&nplm=TG267LL%2FA
Anyone have advice on a good harddrive to get? Is USB drives just as good as Firewire drives? Is going with a USB drive the only way to capture directly to the External Drive?

"...Would I have any problems with capturing video with an external USB Drive?
Or is firewire way faster? ..."
Theoretically, USB (2.0) may be a little faster (than FW400) - on paper. However, the info flow w/USB is "packetized" which can slow things down - not so for firewire. Firewire is the better way to go.
Now to back track a little bit: First, You wouldn't want to capture to the internal HD. It's not going to be reliable because you're asking the system to manage too many things at once:
1.) Your OS.
2.) The capturing application (iMovie, FCE, FCP, whatever).
3.) The captured media.
This is eventually going to be too much for a 5400 rpm drive to handle. So, external is going to be best.
Second, as was suggested by another poster, you can chain your HD & your camera together. This may work, but again there is some overloading going on. Now you're asking the firewire bus to handle the camera AND the hard drive too. This can start to be too much for the system as well.
The most reliable way to accomplish what you're going for is to get an expansion Firewire card. Then you could plug the camera into the FW400 port on the MacBook Pro then plug the drive into the expansion card's port. So now you've separated the devices onto individual busses. (BTW, an example of such an expansion card would be the 2-Port NitroAV FireWire800/1394b Professional Express Card (34mm) Interface Adapter (MacBookPro).) This card is FW800. However, you can buy a cable that goes from FW800 -> FW400 to use with "regular" FW drives - if need be. Or just get a FW800 drive...
Hope this helps...

Can PB boot from an External Firewire Hard Drive?

Can I set up an external firewire hard drive as an emergency boot drive, in case my internal drive goes south? Anyone have utility software recommendations for setting up boot drive or mirror drive, in addition to OS X's Disk Utility? Thanks.

Photon2:
Yes, you can set up your external firewire HDD as an emergency boot drive.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Your HDD must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2. (Optional) I suggest you partition your HDD so that the first partition is roughly equivalent to the size of your internal HDD. The rest can be partitioned for other uses. (See Dr. Smoke's FAQ Backup and Recovery) For step-by-step for formatting and partitioning please post back).
3. Use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your internal HDD to the external firewire HDD/partition.
Please post back with further questions or comments.
Cheers
cornelius

Is it possible to boot a G4 (pci graphics) from an external firewire drive?

I have a Lacie 250 gig bootable external firewire drive which is recognized on my Power PC G4 400 but I cannot get it to boot from this drive. The procedure works fine on my ibook... I looked into a possible firmware update but the apple site says no update is necessary for the G4 400/pci graphics...
Any suggestions?

There sure are some radically contradictory posts here! (This isn't typical, at least in this section of the Discussions, RMx2.)
Can anyone who has posted here (or might join in here) actually boot from a hard drive connected via USB? I just tested this with OS X and I can't. For some time now, the Discussions have been riddled with posts, whether 100% accurate or inaccurate, that Macs don't boot from USB drives, despite the seemingly conflicting info in the article that Don kindly referenced. (John Huber: Don't eat your words just yet, John!)
Here's my personal experience, for what it's worth... I have a rev.2 B&W G3 which recognizes, reads, and writes to drives via USB, but refuses to boot from them (I tested with OS X 10.3 and 10.4). I also have a QS 2002 G4 that yields the same results. The QS G4 will, however, boot from these drives via FW. I used a WiebeTech ComboDock for testing this with both USB and FW. I tested with two different hard drives, both of which are known to have stable, working versions of OS X on them.
My G3 running OS X 10.3.9 sees the USB-connected drives in the Startup Disk Preference Pane, but when I click to Restart after selecting the USB system folder there, I get a beachball (haven't seen that in awhile...) and have to Force Quit System Preferences. Console tells me that that it could not get open firmware information or set open firmware information, and that it can't touch or set System/Library/CoreServices/BootX, returning Error 1 running bless.
On the QS running Tiger, the USB OSs don't even appear in the Startup Disk Pane of Sys Prefs. I can see the USB drive(s) using the Startup Manager, but selecting them and restarting results in a hung startup to a spinning cog with a prohibitory sign on the screen...
I haven't tried playing around with open firmware NVRAM settings (and don't intend to, except perhaps for trying an NVRAM reset), nor have I attempted to boot to OS 9, reset the startup disk there, and attempt the boot again to the USB device in OS X and in OS 9, which I may try later on when I have a bit of time...
Gary
Message was edited by: Majordadusma

How do I back up my Boot Camp partition to external firewire drive?

I have a 15 GB Windows XP Boot Camp partition (FAT32). I want to back it up to a 120 GB external Firewire drive. (I know the backup won't be bootable). In OX X Disk Utility, I formatted the external drive as MS-DOS (FAT). I planned to do the backup using the Windows Backup utility.
However, when booted into WinXP, Windows will not recognize the external hard drive. I thought I might need to create a FAT32 partion of 32 GB or less on the external drive, but I apparently can't do this in OS X or Windows (since Windows doesn't recognize the drive).
Any suggestions on how to backup the Boot Camp partition will be appreciated. I'm mainly interested in preserving all programs and data. Ideally, a clone could be created that could be restored back to the original partition in bootable form, but from studying this and other forums, it dosn't seem to be easy to do this for a FAT32-formatted volume.

My goal was to create a bootable clone of my FAT32 Boot Camp partition, while at the same time increasing the size of the partition from 15 GB to 32 GB if possible. This is what I did:
1. As suggested in this thread, I used Disk Utility to create a disk image. I formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT), and made it 32 GB in size.
2. Used the Finder to copy all files from my 15 GB Windows XP partition to the new disk image.
The following steps were only to determine if the disk image is a viable backup:
3. Removed the internal hard drive with my original Win XP partition, and installed a new internal hard drive.
4. Used Boot Camp Assistant to create a 32 GB Boot Camp partition on the new internal drive.
5. Inserted my Win XP installation disk and started the Windows installation. Formatted the new partition as FAT32. (I used the long rather than the quick format method--not sure if this was necessary.)
6. Continued the Windows installation to the point of restarting the computer, at which time I used the Option key to boot back into OS X.
7. Used the Finder to copy all the files from the 32 GB disk image to the new Boot Camp partition. (This overwrote a few Windows files installed by the aborted Win XP installation.)
8. Restarted and used the Option key to select the new 32 GB Boot Camp Partition. Windows booted as usual with all files, programs, etc. from the original 15 GB partition. Windows did complain about "new hardware" and required a restart, but all appears normal.
This indicates that the disk image containing all the files from my original Boot Camp partition is a viable backup, and can be used to restore the partition if necessary. I'm not sure if formatting the disk image as MS-DOS (rather than Mac OS extended) was necessary, or not.

Can I install OS 9 on an external Firewire drive?

I am not sure if this belongs in the G5 thread or the Leopard thread. Anyway:
I have a Mac G5, running Leopard 10.5.4.
I understand that Leopard will not run Classic applications.
*However, can I install OS 9 on an external Firewire drive? And just boot directly from that drive?*
I have essential OS 9 apps that I really need to keep.
I am aware of Classic emulators that run under Leopard, but that is not an option.
Any advice, insights, suggestions, et cetera in this matter will be appreciated!

+PS I should have added for the sake of others reading this thread…+
You, Dunestrider, can run your Mac in Tiger (and hence in Classic) because, AFAIK, your G5 originally shipped with Tiger.
Others should be aware that you cannot boot a Mac with an OS earlier than the one with which it shipped, i.e. if your Mac shipped with Leopard you cannot do what I suggested in my previous post. See this Apple doc.
Also, Dunestrider, I just realised belatedly that you won't have to buy Tiger - you will still have the original Install disk(s) that came with the G5.
Andreas

Installing Mac OS X on an external firewire hard drive.

No matter what I try, I cannot get my Mac mini to boot from the SuperDrive, in order to install the Mac OS X operating system onto my external firewire hard drive...
The Mac mini always recognises the external firewire HD, each time the system boots-up which is good, however it also boots-up from the internal HD, automatically.
Any suggestions ?
I have also noticed that my external firewire HD does not appear as an option as a Startup Disk, under System Preferences...
Regards,
Howard Pew.

I have used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the Mini's internal HD to the firewire external HD, and now it appers as a Startup Drive under System Preferences...
I have also noticed that I must first turn-on the ext. firewire HD and then after a few seconds turn-on the Mini.
And, yes, I was using the original DVD-ROM System Install Disk that came with the Mini, when I was trying to install Mac OS X onto the ext. firewire HD...
Now, I still cannot get my Mac Mini to boot from the ext. firewire HD, even with a clone copy of the internal HD. I keep selecting it as my Startup Disk under System Preferences and even lock-it, but this does not seem to work.
Now, I use the 'Alt' key (for Windows PC keyboards) which is the 'Option' key for Mac keyboards, when the Mini is booting up. This gives me a choice as to which HD I want to boot from... However, I cannot seem to change this from the default internal HD. It gives me a large arrow to use, in order to change the HD, but I cannot seem to use this large arrow from the keyboard. And the mouse just stays in the top left-hand corner of the screen. I know, if the mouse curser were free, I would be able to change the large arrow and boot from the ext. firewire HD...
Any suggestions ?
Regards,
Howard Pew.

Sound Library Storage on External Firewire Hard Drive

I'm planning on using the 3-drive configuration for Logic 8 -- internal system drive (500 Gig) in bay #1 for Logic install -- second internal drive in bay #2 for audio recording -- and an external firewire drive for sound library storage.
I've got the *Apogee Ensemble* which doesn't like sharing the Mac Pro Firewire Bus. Given the significant demands made on the Mac Pro's firewire bus by Ensemble, the tech at Apogee suggested a PCI-e firewire card to create a second firewire bus for the external firewire drive (and any other firewire peripherals I have in mind).
*Question 1:* Does it matter whether this external drive is firewire 400 or 800? Will it make a noticeable difference?
I'm planning on partitioning this external firewire drive into three volumes as follows:
Volume 1 -- one-time back-up/clone of my current OS X Tiger hard drive contents.
Volume 2 -- ongoing cumulative back-up of new OS X Leopard install (we're waiting for 10.5.3)
Volume 3 -- sound library storage
*Question 2:* Will Logic or the Mac Pro have any problems streaming samples from a partitioned external firewire drive? (assuming neither volumes 1 or 2 are active while running a Logic session)

Well, I don't know about the unmounting, Kitesurfer, but I thought it was worth bringing up. I also thought it was possible to unmount one volume without the other disappearing, even though they're on the same disk. It may just be my particular external disk but I find that hard to believe. Also, I'm not sure if, because your CCC clone will be journaled, OS X interacts with it in any way. Someone else may be able to answer that.
I'm not a pro so I doubt my equipment will be of interest to you, but it's a 500GB Lacie mini hub. I also have a Lacie 250GB external, which has a clone of my sample library partition. Nobody recommends Lacie but I've had the 500GB for almost a year and the 250GB for over two years I think, and I've never had a problem (except maybe the unmounting issue).

External Firewire HD won't mount after Connecting to B&W w/ bad Firewire

I've tried and tried to find the answer, so finally I post...
I've had two external Firewire Laptop HD enclosures become unmountable after hooking them up to a 400 Mhz powermac G3. This has been 6 months apart. I used to use the Powermac B&W ... I know the Firewire worked at one time, but cant remember if it was before or after I added a Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card.
After clean installing... 10.3.2 .... no Classic... I hoped it would wake up the Firewire, did not. So hooked up the external HD to the USB.... it worked. Then, went to the eMac and via Firewire hooke up the same external HD.... it worked.... for 2 hours. Disconecceted, reconnected and like the other one...... no more mount. Not in classic, not on any comuter. If I daisy chain it to another Firewire external, the About this Mac no longer recognizes info on either. Once removed, the computer recognized the info the good one. Disk Utilities does not recognize harddrives in the enclosure... I put a different HD inthe enclosure.. still not mounting
It spins and receives power.... but no mount. Is this firmware? The hard drive is not corrupted... I put it into a mac mini and was able to extract the info... but what has caused this B&W's fire wire to go, and caused 2 of my externals to go as well....
Help.
Mixolidean

try the following to reset the ports:
1) zap PRAM - reboot holding down Cmd-Opt-P-R and left the machine boot cycle 3-4 times
2) reset Open Firmware
reboot holding down Cmd-Opt-O-F
at the screen type <reset-nvram</i>
press Return
type reset-all
press Return
3) disconnect ALL devices from the computer
unplug the computer from the wall
let it sit for 10-15 minutes
plug back in and reboot

External Firewire Harddrive Suggestions

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