Firewire 800 upgrade

Hi all,
I've got a Lacie hard drive which, apart from having ridiculously short cables, features both USB2 and Firewire 800 (as well as the usual FW400).
I currently connect this to our server - an old G4 400mhz (AGP graphics) machine.
I was thinking of getting a FW800 PCI upgrade card (Belkin or Lacie seem to do them - not sure which is best) but is installing it on an old machine like this pointless? Is the 33 mhz PCI slot too much of a bottleneck to really get the use out of FW800's speed?
...and would USB2 be the better option?
Any help will be gratefully received.
Cheers,
Andy
PowerMac G4 400 Mac OS X (10.4.8) Old but lovely (the computer - not me)

Hi, Andy -
Can't address the issue of whether it's pointless or not to do such an upgrade - mostly that would be a financial-based decision, I would think.
However, as far as USB 2.0 goes - although the burst speed of USB 2.0 looks good, even FW400 has a faster sustained throughput than USB 2.0.

Similar Messages

Upgrading my intel iMac to internal SSD and running 1TB external drive from firewire 800 for mass storage while still using a second external drive for backups...my goal-speed with a SSD, to still have 1TB of room for everything i have now..possible?

I seem to kill HD's every two years...the last two i've installed were WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200rpm 3.5" drives. The speed gains over stock drives have been remarkable. I don't blame the drives for the failures, my machines are up and running 16 hours a day, every day, year round. They die from 'mileage' so to speak...i assume...there's no viral acvtivity or questionable downloads to gunk things up...just lots of work.
I have my third new drive ready to install in my intel based iMac...but i've had a thought...I want to install a SSD in my iMac for the speed gain (and recent price drops)...for standard storage i want to use this new WD Caviar Black 1TB in an external drive bay and connect via firewire 800 for storing everything except the OS and my most commonly used software...am i crazy? will the firewire 800 external drive negate the speed gained with an internal SSD??
I have four iMacs in my office, and one at home. I buy second hand and install new drives and boost memory. I'm going to do this on my 'home' machine...if it works out well i want to upgrade the other three this way...but first i need to know if i'm just dreaming, or will it really make a difference? or even possible??
Thanks!
2.66 intell core2duo
2009 iMac
8gig ram
1 gig hd
OSX ver. 10.8

The SSD gives great bootup and Application launch speed. I think it also speeds up the video rendering a bit, I do all that on the SSD and then move the finished project to the external drives. As far as the speed for the external drives they are quick enough for viewing video and the file transfer rate is good. I had initially put the SSD into an external cradle (FW800) and the system was faster than on the internal drive. I only got a 1.5GBs SATA drive, perhaps yours could benefit from the 3GBs. I know the 6GBs would be too fast and costs a lot more, even the MacPros need special hookups to make use of the 6GBs.

Upgrade Firewire 400 to Firewire 800

Is it reasonable to upgrade my iMac (see below) from Firewire 400 to Firewire 800? Can I do it?

No the iMac does not have any expansion slots to install a Firewire 800 card.
regards
mrtotes

External firewire 800 Iomega HD too slow since Lion Upgrade

Hi all,
Since my upgrade to OSX Lion im having the issue that my external Iomega HD is too slow to even playback my song (only audio files, About 9 Tracks of them). I removed all 3rd party plugins but the issue still occurs.
Is anyone experiencing the same issue? Any ideas on how to resolve it?
System:
iMac Middle of 2010
4GB 1333 Mhz DDR 3 Ram
External Harddrive is a iomega 1TB firewire 800 disk.
With Snow leopard it worked well... Maybe i was too fast with updating this time...
Cheers

Sorry little addition:
It s about an external fw hd working with Logic- not in general slow performance.

No Firewire 800 after upgrade to 10.7.4

Hi All
I have a mid-2007 iMac (upgraded to 4GB RAM and 2TB HD). I have a Freecom Quattro Dock which allows me to hot swap hard disks, and it's connected to my iMac via Firewire 800. I use it to backup my internal HD.
I backed up my iMac HD and then proceeded to upgrade from 10.7.3 to 10.7.4 which appeared successful, but now my iMac cannot see the disk connected to the dock via the Firewire 800 port. The dock has USB 2 and Firewire 400 connections, and it works fine via Firewire 400.
Has anyone else experienced a similar problem? Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Paul

That's why I mentioned both. Sometimes installers muck up low-level settings.

Firewire 800 CF-reader faulty after lion upgrade

Hi,
After upgrading to Lion, my primo 2008 iMac will no longer read from my Delock firewire 800 CF-reader. Found a few other notions on mac-forums about firewire issues, some mentioning the kernel running i 64-bit being the course. Tried booting i 32-bit with no luck.
Any suggestions?
Martin

And their swift reply....
Dear Sir Christensen,
thank you for your message.
Our CF card reader is a plug&play device and is automatically recognised by the Mac OS.10.7.
That is only the cases, if her CF- card reader own the current firmware.
A problem with the default driver under Mac OS.10.7 is unknown.
It is none other driver available.
In our test we could not this problem reconstructed.
It is possible, that our CF card reader is incompatibly with her harware.
We have for our older CF card reader (befor december 2011) the following solution.
If you have a Windows XP you can update the new firmware for our CF-card reader in this system via the included tool.
The disadvantage is, the tool is executed only in a Microsoft operating system.
We have tested it and it worked.
Instructions for using the tool "91694FW.exe":
Link for the new firmware.
http://www.delock.de/produkte/G_91694/treiber.html
Please join our CF-card reader with your system .
Insert a CF card in our CF-card reader.
Now extract the software from the annex under the directory "C:".
Click inside the extracted folder on "91694FW.exe".
The tool should now be opened and the directory path for the "JMB355_v0.00.100.11.33.bin" will displayed.
Now click on the "Start" button.
The update is executed and a successful upgrade with the message "PASS" is acknowledged.
Then close the tool and test the CF Card Reader for Mac OS.10.7 with a CF-card.
Note on a possible error during the execution of the update.
If the "START" button after opening the tool can not be activated, is probably the cause the used the CF card.
Try to update with another CF card.
Please note the following information to the "Firmware Update Utiliy MAC v0.1.dmg.rar" !!!
The Mac OS.X based firmware became negative tested from us .
For this reason this firmware is not available over us.
In addition, can not be completely excluded a defect on our hardware.
Please contact in this case, her trader for the regulation of your claims.
Please note the following information about "compatibility with a Mac OS.X":
On all our current card reader ( since December 2011) is the firmware "JMB355_v0.00.100.11.33.BIN" contain.
The current card reader supported a Mac OS.10.5., a Mac OS.10.6 and a Mac OS.10.7.X .
Yours sincerely
Dietmar Burgund
Delock Support

New Firewire 800 External Hard Drive and how to use old External USB Drive

Hi All,
I have a new LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Disk hard drive 500 GB - FireWire / FireWire 800 / Hi-Speed USB / eSATA-300 on the way, when it arrives I plan to use it as my Time Machine Backup drive with the FireWire 800 connection. I am currently using a Seagate Free Agent USB 2.0 320 GB external drive as my Time Machine disk. The reason for upgrading is the USB drive is slow slow slow! I am not concerned about the data on my old drive and will just wipe it clean using Disk Utility. What I would like to do is use the old drive to archive iTunes 7.7.1 and Aperture 2.0 music and photographs. Can someone give me an idea how to go about doing this?
Thanks!

Hi, yes that will copy the whole iTunes..including everything in iTunes..BUT, as you add to your iTunes on the Main HD, with the ext HD I think you will have to manually update anything added. Or dragNdrop the whole thing again.. You could also locate you iTunes music Library & just copy that across..With images once again find your iPhoto library & just copy that across..L

How to connect an external harddrive with firewire 800 to a macbook with firewire 400?

Hello,
I just got the external harddrive "Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex USB 3.0 1TB" with a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Upgrade Kabel FireWire 800. I have neither a USB 3.0, nor a Firewire 800 on my white macbook (2008). I already know, that it's possible to use USB 3.0 with an USB 2.0 port, but I would like to use it with the firewire to spare the USB port for other devices. My question: Is there an adapter or cable to use the Seagate Firewire 800 with my Firewire 400 port? I don't know, where and what to look for.
I'm glad for any advice.

There are many adaptors, try here

I currently have a MAC Mini, which has 1 Firewire 800 port. I have a 1TB external hard disk that runs at Firewire 400. Can I insert another external hard drive that runs at Firewire 800?

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

Recording to external hard drives - Firewire 800 problems

Ok so i did post a similar thread on this in the "mac mini" part of the website so im very sorry for double posting but I thought since this problems pertains mostly to recording and specifically recording on garageband, that I would try posting here as well. Heres my deal:
I am a musician working with garageband and I have always been recording to my internal drive until recently. I was unaware until I read some posts here from the good people like you guys, that that is not a good idea to record to your internal drive. So, I got an external firewire 800 drive (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DGZ05A) and this cable (http://www.amazon.com/2M-Firewire-800-9PIN-Cable/dp/B000XQILWK/ref=pdbxgy_e_imgb). When I received it, I first used disk utility and reformatted it for Mac OS Extended Journaled. Then I proceeded to move a couple sample libraries and my entire "Garageband" folder (with my saved songs in it) to the external. I instantly knew something was wrong. The files were taking forever to get written over. It took about 15 mins for a 5GB folder to be moved over. I was already discouraged. Anyway, I plugged in the USB cable that came with the external (the drive has hook ups for both USB 2 and firewire 400/800) and tried moving the same files and it was MUCH faster. The same 5GB file was moved over in a matter of minutes.
I then tried recording to the drive (using firewire again) and it would hardly even PLAY the song without stopping every couple seconds (too many effects error, and yes ALL the tracks were locked). Tried to record as well and i'd get even less time before garageband would stop the song with the same error. So I disconnected firewire and went USB. Thru USB the song didnt stop once, not on playback OR recording. Then I moved the songs back to my internal and played them (and recorded) with no problem either.
I ran a couple tests on the drive using AJA system test and came back with these results:
Basic test of read/write speed using firewire 800:
write - 14/mb sec
read - 21/mb sec
then, using usb 2.0
write - 18/mb sec
read - 37/mb sec
both these connections seemed to be running slower then they should ..but at least the USB connection would actually let me play a song and record to it without stopping
I manually copied over a 2.04GB file and via firewire 800 connection it took 2 mins and 20 secs. Via the USB 2 connection it was 55 seconds! ..also, while i transfered the files i noticed that the USB transfer was nice and steady with tiny increments of the file being transferred. Firewire, however, was speedy then slow, speedy then slow. Very inconsistant transfer speed throughout the process. kind of choppy
So what gives? I cant figure out if I'm doing something wrong, or if my external HD is bad? Or the cable is bad? Or maybe the firewire port on my mac mini is bad (i've never used it before for anything other than this external drive). Or i'm thinking maybe my processor isnt strong/fast enough to record to the external firewire drive? Im working with a mac mini 120GB internal HD and the 2ghz intel core 2 duo with only 2GB ram (i know thats not ideal for recording and im planning to upgrade at some point, but i have been recording to the internal just fine with the RAM i have now and never had a problem until trying to record to the firewire drive). I was going to go out today and get a new cable and see if that was the cause of it. Anyway sorry for the book-length post! But PLEASE SOMEBODY help me here! ..as i said, im not very computer literate and only just started producing music using computers so please use dummy terms lol ..thanks in advance

Strictly my opinion, and more than happy to be educated with facts and convinced otherwise... but, there are no dangers.
Bottom line is this... does your specific computer setup encounter ANY problems during recording or editing with your chosen software and current workflow? If not, then there is nothing wrong. Simple as that. Further, if you are having problems, then its more than likely dealt with by upgrading RAM amount and internal HDD speed and size. If you have a slightly older machine that is pre FW800, you will find by bench marking your HDD's that an upgraded internal system HDD will significantly outperform any external HDD read/write spec's. Even with FW800, comparing apples with apples, your system HDD will more than likely have better spec's. Please however, do not take my word for this, but try it out for yourself. Make sure you have facts about your own system rather than believing my claims or anyone else's claims. I used Intech's Quickbench http://www.speedtools.com/QuickBench.html to get some facts about my machine.
There will be an argument made that you will be putting strain on your hard drive by recording to the system drive because it not only has to deal with this function but also with other functions related to your audio programs and OS. Apparently you may be working it on the 'hard' side and shorten its life span. Probably technically correct but practically speaking you will more than likely never even notice any such strain. If you are worried about a system HDD crash or death because you are working it too hard then the answer to this is a well planned back up regime. You should have one anyway, regardless of setup.

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.

Firewire 800 not running as expected. VERY slow

Ok so this is my first post here. I looked all over google and various places but cannot find out whats going on (im also not very computer literate so please bear with me!). Heres my deal:
I am a musician working with garageband and I have always been recording to my internal drive until recently. I was unaware until I read some posts here from the good people like you guys, that that is not a good idea to record to your internal drive. So, I got an external firewire 800 drive (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DGZ05A) and this cable (http://www.amazon.com/2M-Firewire-800-9PIN-Cable/dp/B000XQILWK/ref=pdbxgy_e_imgb). When I received it, I first used disk utility and reformatted it for Mac OS Extended Journaled. Then I proceeded to move a couple sample libraries and my entire "Garageband" folder (with my saved songs in it) to the external. I instantly knew something was wrong. The files were taking forever to get written over. It took about 15 mins for a 5GB folder to be moved over. I was already discouraged. Anyway, I plugged in the USB cable that came with the external and tried moving the same files and it was MUCH faster. The same 5GB file was moved over in a matter of minutes.
I then tried recording to the drive (using firewire again) and it would hardly even PLAY the song without stopping every couple seconds (too many effects error, and yes ALL the tracks were locked). Tried to record as well and i'd get even less time before garageband would stop the song with the same error. So I disconnected firewire and went USB. Thru USB the song didnt stop once, not on playback OR recording. Then I moved the songs back to my internal and played them (and recorded) with no problem either. So what gives? I cant figure out if I'm doing something wrong, or if my external HD is bad? Or the cable is bad? Or maybe the firewire port on my mac mini is bad (i've never used it before for anything other than this external drive). Or i'm thinking maybe my processor isnt strong/fast enough to record to the external firewire drive? Im working with a mac mini 120GB internal HD and the 2ghz intel core 2 duo with only 2GB ram (i know thats not ideal for recording and im planning to upgrade at some point, but i have been recording to the internal just fine with the RAM i have now and never had a problem until trying to record to the firewire drive). I was going to go out today and get a new cable and see if that was the cause of it. Anyway sorry for the book-length post! But PLEASE SOMEBODY help me here! ..as i said, im not very computer literate and only just started producing music using computers so please use dummy terms lol ..thanks in advance
P.S. this is my first post so im sorry if I should've posted this in a different category.

Hi,
Are you using an audio Firewire 400 interface (daisy-chained through you external FW800 HDD) ?
I've same problem (mac mini June 2010) so I think it is a compatibility problem between the mac (perhaps only with mini) and some recent Firewire chipsets found in external HDD. I read somewhere that Apple does not support anymore PLX (that acquired Oxford) chipsets for external HDD connected to Mac Pro.
I tried then using the Sonnet Yin Yang adapter (to avoid daisy-chaining), however it is the same :
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13360117#13360117
The problem does not happen when daisy-chaining through FW400 (from the audio interface to the HDD).
Using the external disk only (FW800), I get up to 60 Mbyte/s sequential write and up to 70 Mbyte/s sequential read (that is using xbench - in memory read, you shouldn't try between two disks as the slower will be the limiting factor). My external HDD is a WD Caviar blue so it also helps.

WD My Book Studio FireWire 800 External Hard Drive & Mountain Lion

I just recently purchase a 2 TB WD My Book Studio FireWire 800 External Hard Drive (model #WDBC3G0020HAL-NESN) to perform backups of my 1TB iMac which currently is running OS X Lion 10.7.5. The packaging says the external hard drive is compatible with Lion, but I was curious to find out if I upgrade to Mountain Lion in the near future will that cause issues with the external drive or is it still compatible with Mountain Lion?

That is actually the thread that I was looking at earlier that caused my concern.
Is there any way to 100% verify with apple that there are no firewire problems with external hard drives and Mountain Lion before I hook up my new drive and possibly upgrade in the near future.
Also, I have heard good things about both SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner.
I basically want to be able to boot from my external hard drive partition if I have a major hard drive issue.
Will both of those programs do that for me and will I really go wrong with either one of them?
Thanks again for you repsonses, they have been a big help!

Mini DV Camcorder to Firewire 800?

Currently I have a mini DV camcorder that feeds into the Firewire 400 port of my old iBook.
Now want to upgrade to the new Macbook Pro but it doesn't have a firewire 400 port
Can I put the Mini DV output into the Firewire 800 port on the Macbook Pro?

Not with the cable you have. You need to get a 9-pin Firewire 800 to 4-pin Firewire 400 cable. Anything on the page below should work for you. I've purchased cables from this company before, I'm really happy with their service.
http://www.firefold.com/9-Pin-to-4-Pin-C53.aspx
Cheers!

Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 external drive problems

I recently upgraded from a MacBook Pro 17" early 2011 to a MacBook Pro Retina 15" (early 2013). I have a Drobo and two Seagate 4TB external drives, all connected via Firewire 800. So, I added a Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter and, it seemed, life was good.
I keep my large iTunes Movie and TV show collection on the Drobo. Since transitioning to the new MacBook, I have had a number of issue with watching movies on my Apple TV 3. Randomly, and periodically, the movie appears to be corrupted - the audio track skips/loops and the image is horrible macroblocked, as if the file is damaged. When I check the movies on the Drobo, opening it with Quicktime on the MBP, it plays just fine at the same spot it appeared damaged on the Apple TV 3.
A second symptom is this: I can no longer re-encode video with Handbrake with the source and target files on the Drobo - it gets some portion of the way through and it just stops, leaving the video partially encoded; again, at random locations/offsets into the video and not the same spot twice.
My initial thought is that connection to the Drobo is dropping out and coming back, on its own, but long enough to cause the above problems.
Is anyone else seeing this issue or something related when using the Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter with large drives?
Thanks, in advance.

Update: I exchanged the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter and the issue persists. I have a Drobo that I used with my previous system, a PowerMac G5, and never had any issues like this.
It does not matter what software I use. But at some point video playback will suddenly become garbled. If I start the video from the beginning, sometimes the garbled video will start sooner but never later. A restart temporarily resolves the issue. If I copy the file to the local hard drive the video will play back garbled. This is indeed a very strange issue. The issue behaves like a bandwidth bottleneck.
I was having this issue prior to upgrading to Mavericks.
Fred K
iMac (Late 2012), 3.4 GHz i7, GTX 680MX, Fusion Drive, 24 GB RAM, Drobo (Firewire via Thunderbolt)

Firewire 800 upgrade

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for