FW800 Exteral Hard drive and a port multiplier?

Not sure if i can get my answer here, but hoping someone will point me in the right direction.
Basically I am building my own Storage solution.
I have an imac.
FW800
I have an external FW800 drive that I have pulled apart for the FW800 to Sata Bridge
This is then connected to a Port multiplier that should give me 5 Sata ports to then attach 5 sata devices.
The External firewire800 bridge has an Oxford Semi conductor OXUF924DSB-FBAG
PDF details here, this suggests that it is already capable of to SATA dries but te board of course only has one. but also says that it supports port multipling.
The port muliplier I have is a
Lycom ST-126RM SATA II 3Gbps 1-To-5 Port Multiplier bridge board (for Rack Mount)
everything has relevant power supplies attacted. But nothing is showing in the disc utility.
Can anyone point me in the direction of anything tried and test please?
Many Thanks

What type of device and what do you mean by "doesn't work so good"?
It could be that the FW controller is dying - I've had that happen to me and it caused me no end of trouble until I replaced the device (in my case it was an old LaCie external optical drive).
Clinton

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Why not?

I have one HDMI port on my television that is currently used for my hard drive/free view box. What kind of adaptor can I buy so I can have the hard drive and my apple tv device plugged into the same HDMI PORT?

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Welcome to the Apple Community.
You need an HDMI switch.

How to connect an external hard drive and monitor a single port thuderbolt

how to connect an external hard drive and monitor a single port thuderbolt

Yu connect the HDD to your Mac and then the monitor to the HDD.
The HDD should have TWO T-Bird ports on the enclosure.
Its called daisy chaining and up to five devices can be connected in this fashion.

Daisy chaining external hard drives and a video camera from a single firewire 800 port on my imac

I have only a single firewire 800 port on my imac and want to know if I can daisy chain two external hard drives and my video camera, please? If not is there another solution using USB 2?

Are the external HDs self powered or powered by the FW port? If they are self powered there should not be a problem. If they are port powered they may put a strain on the port's power output but I'n not positive on that.

I am going to buy a new external hard drive and have some questions first

Although I asked this question several years ago, I would like to ask it again, just if in case technology in general or external hard drives in particular have changed in any significant ways.
I need to replace a 1 terabyte LaCie external hard drive that died on me after a few years.
1. I am afraid of buying another LaCie. What other brands are reliable? I heard that Western Digital is. Also another brand beginnibg with S (so helpful, I know).
2. Do I have to look for a drive that is MAC FORMATTED? I vaguely recall this term from years ago. I also remember another term that I was to look out for, but I don't remember what it was. Something like ”chronicled“ but obviously not that.
3. Should I get more than 1 terabyte? Right now I have an old, old 125 gigabyte LaCie that still lives, but it is so small that it is almost nothing
4. What do you think about buying external hard drives fron Costco as opposed to from the Apple Store?
~L

Ziatron, you wrote ”All you do is open the enclosure and the hard drive plugs in. (done.)“ What enclosure?
This is the enclosure I like, it needs a hard drive to work : http://www.cooldrives.com/ox93saiihadr.html
But there are many others.
looking at my two dead laCie ext. hard drives and they don't have ”enclosures.“ Just holes in the back to receive the cables.
A hard drive enclosure is a box or case the actual hard drive goes into. Look at the images in the link above. You can see what is inside.
This hard drive goes inside the above cool drive enclosure: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop-WD20EADS/dp/B001RB1TI S/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258862242&sr=8-1
You recommended getting a hard drive with a Firewire connection, but most of the hard drives have USB.
Well maybe, the better drives are Firewire.
Should that matter to me?
Yes, Firewire is "isochronous", basically meaning that you can pump "clocked" data though it in real time. USB works more like TCPIP, with the data chopped up into packets and later reassembled. (Thus, at a minimum, you have latency, that is, the wait for the data to be "put back together".) Second, the Firewire protocol allows more direct address to memory (including mass storage) with minimal intervention of the CPU.
Is USB a whole lot slower than Firewire if I am transferring materials?
Firewire is faster and _more reliable._
Take a look at the link below, "Build Your Own External Hard Drive". The enclosure I like is easier to use.
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/tips/hard_drive/
http://macs.about.com/od/diyguidesprojects/ss/externalhdcase.htm
Also you need a Mac Pro to use eSATA, with a iMac use the Firewire port.

Hard drive and FCP question

I got lots of short questions and a semi bigger one.
I plan on editing HD and standard definition video with my iMac using FCP. My hard drive is 130 gig and I need a bigger one. My current fire wire ports on my iMac are both 400mb/sec and that is too slow for HD and I was told I cannot get that upgraded. The guy at an apple store told me iMac's use lap top hard drives and there is no big improvement from my current 130 gig.
I looked my hard drive up and I believe it is actually a desktop hard drive if I'm not mistaken. The model number is ST3160812AS. So does that mean I can get a desk top hard drive upgrade? If so I was looking at the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 750g 7200 rpm. Is that a good choice?
How do you upgrade to a new hard drive anyway? Who installs it? Me or can I get a professional to do it for me for a small fee? How do I get all the current data on my hard drive on to the new one?
Where I usually do most of my editing the computers have two hard drives. One to hold the footage and transfer the data to the other one which is actually doing the editing. My film teacher says this is the best thing to do, but obviously I can't do that since two hard drives in my iMac is out of the question and I can't get a fire wire port fast enough to support a hard drive that isn't just for storage. Can that hard drive I was looking at handle doing the two processes on its own? Do I have any other options?
Thanks in advanced.

J D McIninch wrote:
\- The bitrate for HDV high-definition video is *25 Mbps* -- 1/16th the bandwidth of FW400.
\- Max bitrate for AVCHD is *24 Mbps*.
\- DVCPRO100 has the highest bitrate of all the HD video formats at a whopping *100 Mbps*.
The maximum burst speed of FW400 is about 393 MBps \[typo: 393 Mbps\] and sustained
transfer rate it near that.
You shouldn't worry about the transfer rates on FireWire as much as the drives.
Most hard drives are not going to be able to sustain transfer rates of 100 Mbps --
you probably need an array for that. It's moot, however, if you are using consumer-grade
HD (with rates around 25 Mbps).
Very useful info on the video data rates on various formats, JDM -- thanks.
However, I'm a little confused by the disk drive data rates you quoted. It appears that
the numbers you mentioned are actually MBytes/s (MBps) rather than Mbits/s (Mbps).
The OP's current internal HD (ST3160812AS) is a 160GB Seagate 7200.9 family drive
spec'd at 83MBytes/s max sustained throughput. (That applies only to the outermost
tracks, when the drive is nearly empty. It'll be about 40MBytes/s on the inner tracks.
So, when nearly full, the internal drive is about the same speed as a FW400 external.
The 750GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 is slightly faster (ca. 85-90MBytes/s maximum,
when empty, and half of that when nearly full). That's fairly fast as today's large HDs
go, but not quite as fast as the new Seagate 7200.11 family drives (105MBytes/s max)
or WesternDigital's WD7500AAKS (98MBytes/s, max) -- but they're all more than fast
enough to saturate a FW400 link, even when the external drive is nearly full.
BTW, from the spec sheets, I see no indication that any of the four drives mentioned
here are "green." They all have similar power requirements; if anything, the Hitachi
consumes the most power, and the Western Digital the least. (That seems to agree
with tomshardware.com's observation 7K1000 drives run hotter than most others.)
It is nice to see that today's fastest 750GB drives consume no more power than the
best-performing 160GB drives of a few years ago.
vtwiz wrote:
Don't attempt to replace the drive in your iMac. Keept it for the OS and software
and use an external drive for all your video.
Good advice! Regardless of the size of your internal drive, save the data-flogging
for the easily-replaceable external drive.
Looby

How to move huge HD video files between external hard drives and defrag ext drive?

I have huge high definition video files on a 2TB external hard drive (and its clone). The external hard drive is maxed out. I would like to move many of the video files to a new 3TB external hard drive (G-drive, and a clone) and leave a sub-group of video files (1+ TB) on the original external hard drive (and its clone).
I am copying files from original external drive ("ext drive A") to new external drive ("ext drive B") via Carbon Copy Cloner (selecting iMovie event by event that I want to transfer). Just a note: I do not know how to partition or make bootable drives, I see suggestions with these steps in them.
My questions:
1.) I assume this transfer of files will create extreme fragmentation on drive A. Should I reformat/re-initialize ext drive A after moving the files I want? If so, how best to do this? Do I use "Erase" within Disk Utilities? Do I need to do anything else before transfering files back onto ext drive A from its clone?
2.) Do I also need to defrag if I reformat ext drive A? Do I defrag instead of or in addition to reformating? If so, how to do this? I've read on these forums so many warnings and heard too many stories of this going awry. Which 3rd party software to use?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions, tips, advice. This whole process makes me SO nervous.

Here is a very good writeup on de-fragging in the OS environment that I borrowed
From Klaus1:
Defragmentation in OS X:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375 which states:
You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X. Here's why:
Hard disk capacity is generally much greater now than a few years ago. With more free space available, the file system doesn't need to fill up every "nook and cranny." Mac OS Extended formatting (HFS Plus) avoids reusing space from deleted files as much as possible, to avoid prematurely filling small areas of recently-freed space.
Mac OS X 10.2 and later includes delayed allocation for Mac OS X Extended-formatted volumes. This allows a number of small allocations to be combined into a single large allocation in one area of the disk.
Fragmentation was often caused by continually appending data to existing files, especially with resource forks. With faster hard drives and better caching, as well as the new application packaging format, many applications simply rewrite the entire file each time. Mac OS X 10.3 onwards can also automatically defragment such slow-growing files. This process is sometimes known as "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering."
Aggressive read-ahead and write-behind caching means that minor fragmentation has less effect on perceived system performance.
Whilst 'defragging' OS X is rarely necessary, Rod Hagen has produced this excellent analysis of the situation which is worth reading:
Most users, as long as they leave plenty of free space available , and don't work regularly in situations where very large files are written and rewritten, are unlikely to notice the effects of fragmentation on either their files or on the drives free space much.
As the drive fills the situations becomes progressively more significant, however.
Some people will tell you that "OSX defrags your files anyway". This is only partly true. It defrags files that are less than 20 MB in size. It doesn't defrag larger files and it doesn't defrag the free space on the drive. In fact the method it uses to defrag the smaller files actually increases the extent of free space fragmentation. Eventually, in fact, once the largest free space fragments are down to less than 20 MB (not uncommon on a drive that has , say only 10% free space left) it begins to give up trying to defrag altogether. Despite this, the system copes very well without defragging as long as you have plenty of room.
Again, this doesn't matter much when the drive is half empty or better, but it does when it gets fullish, and it does especially when it gets fullish if you are regularly dealing with large files , like video or serious audio stuff.
If you look through this discussion board you will see quite a few complaints from people who find that their drive gets "slow". Often you will see that say that "still have 10 or 20 gigs free" or the like. On modern large drives by this stage they are usually in fact down to the point where the internal defragmentation routines can no longer operate , where their drives are working like navvies to keep up with finding space for any larger files, together with room for "scratch files", virtual memory, directories etc etc etc. Such users are operating in a zone where they put a lot more stress on their drives as a result, often start complaining of increased "heat", etc etc. Most obviously, though, the computer slows down to a speed not much better than that of molasses. Eventually the directories and other related files may collapse altogether and they find themselves with a next to unrecoverable disk problems.
By this time, of course, defragging itself has already become just about impossible. The amount of work required to shift the data into contiguous blocks is immense, puts additional stress on the drive, takes forever, etc etc. The extent of fragmentation of free space at this stage can be simply staggering, and any large files you subsequently write are likely to be divided into many , many tens of thousands of fragments scattered across the drive. Not only this, but things like the "extents files", which record where all the bits are located, will begin to grow astronomically as a result, putting even more pressure on your already stressed drive, and increasing the risk of major failures.
Ultimately this adds up to a situation where you can identify maybe three "phases" of mac life when it comes to the need for defragmentation.
In the "first phase" (with your drive less than half full), it doesn't matter much at all - probably not enough to even make it worth doing.
In the "second phase" (between , say 50% free space and 20% free space remaining) it becomes progressively more useful, but , depending on the use you put your computer to you won't see much difference at the higher levels of free space unless you are serious video buff who needs to keep their drives operating as efficiently and fast as possible - chances are they will be using fast external drives over FW800 or eSata to compliment their internal HD anyway.
At the lower end though (when boot drives get down around the 20% mark on , say, a 250 or 500 Gig drive) I certainly begin to see an impact on performance and stability when working with large image files, mapping software, and the like, especially those which rely on the use of their own "scratch" files, and especially in situations where I am using multiple applications simultaneously, if I haven't defragmented the drive for a while. For me, defragmenting (I use iDefrag too - it is the only third party app I trust for this after seeing people with problems using TechToolPro and Drive Genius for such things) gives a substantial performance boost in this sort of situation and improves operational stability. I usually try to get in first these days and defrag more regularly (about once a month) when the drive is down to 30% free space or lower.
Between 20% and 10% free space is a bit of a "doubtful region". Most people will still be able to defrag successfully in this sort of area, though the time taken and the risks associated increase as the free space declines. My own advice to people in this sort of area is that they start choosing their new , bigger HD, because they obviously are going to need one very soon, and try to "clear the decks" so that they maintain that 20% free buffer until they do. Defragging regularly (perhaps even once a fortnight) will actually benefit them substantially during this "phase", but maybe doing so will lull them into a false sense of security and keep them from seriously recognising that they need to be moving to a bigger HD!
Once they are down to that last ten per cent of free space, though, they are treading on glass. Free space fragmentation at least will already be a serious issue on their computers but if they try to defrag with a utility without first making substantially more space available then they may find it runs into problems or is so slow that they give up half way through and do the damage themselves, especially if they are using one of the less "forgiving" utilities!
In this case I think the best way to proceed is to clone the internal drive to a larger external with SuperDuper, replace the internal drive with a larger one and then clone back to it. No-one down to the last ten percent of their drive really has enough room to move. Defragging it will certainly speed it up, and may even save them from major problems briefly, but we all know that before too long they are going to be in the same situation again. Better to deal with the matter properly and replace the drive with something more akin to their real needs once this point is reached. Heck, big HDs are as cheap as chips these days! It is mad to struggle on with sluggish performance, instability, and the possible risk of losing the lot, in such a situation.

External Hard Drives and Finder 10810 error code

Whenever I plug a Hard drive my imac via any type of cable( usb, FW400, FW800) after a while it will freeze the finder up and I will have to relaunch the finder. Then all the icons on the desktop will disappear and then I will have to either unplug the hard drive( without properly ejecting it) or reboot the mac. Is it the mac software, or is it the hard drives, or a corrupt file on the hard drive. I have tried reformatting the hard drive and wiping my macbook clean. I am running the latest version of Snow leopard. I constantly update all my software. What can I do to fix this problem??

does it happen with the same hard drive or different drives?

My iMac is disconnecting all my media hard drives and giving "Disk Not Ejected Properly" message since updating to OSX 10.9

Ever since I updated to OSX version 10.9 on my iMac, it is disconnecting all of my media hard drives and giving me the message: "Disk Not Ejected Properly." My hard drives are connected to my iMac through a Nitro Professional 8-port Firewire 800 hub/repeater, and a Firewire 800 cable from the Nitro hub connects to the back of my iMac. This configuration has been working fine for over a year. Suddenly, and immediately after performing the update about a week ago, the drives won't stay connected for more than a few seconds before the iMac disconnects from my drives. I've tried restarting and reconnecting many times and the same thing keeps happening.
I have a new MacBook Pro (one month old) that I've been using temporarily to work with my photos and video on these drives as the drives are able to stay connected to this computer—I put a Thunderbolt adapter onto the Firewire 800 cable to connect to it. Luckily I had not yet updated it to the new operating system and I am afraid to do that. I've had the persistent message that Updates are available for my computer on my MacBook but I will not perform any updates for fear that I will lose access to my media drives. I am a professional photographer, so it's pretty disasterous if I can't access my drives. Please advise me what to do to keep my hard discs connected to my iMac and what to do to keep this from happening with my MacBook.
Thanks in advance for your knowledge and assistance!

Hello Roma2001,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your FireWire hub.
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in the following article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Macbook won't recognize external Hard Drive and issues with Time Machine

Hello everyone,
I have just bought a new Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion and I am currently having problems with Time Machine.
The issue begun in Snow Leopard: Time Machine was taking too long to backup, and would often not finish the backup because the external hard drive would be unwillingly ejected.
Now with Mountain Lion I have reformated the drive (Mac OS Journaled) and about a third of the way through had the same issue: the drive was ejected before the backup could be finished. I restarted the machine and it happened again. However, now the computer won't even recognize the external drive when I plug it in. I have also tried to power off/on the drive itself to no progress.
I have tested the USB port with another drive and the port is fine. I have also tested the usb cable and it is fine. And Disk Utility does not recognize the drive (even when I try the >diskutil list command in terminal).
Now, I can hear the drive humming normally when I turn it on, and it is not usb-powered (my electricity current does fluctuate).
Could the interrupted backup procedures have damaged the drive? And if so, wouldn't the computer recognize it anyway?
It is a 4 year old WD 1 TB that is used exclusively for TM and has never left the house.
Thank you for your time reading this and let me know if you need any more information that could help out.
Cheers!

From your description, I'd suspect a failing drive. Maybe time for a new external, especially as you've already re-formatted and it's still playing up.
I had a similar problem with one of my clone backups a few weeks ago - it failed, I erased it, re-cloned, worked a couple of times and then it failed again. Disk Utility didn't throw up any errors after re-formatting. I guess all disks die at some point.

USB external hard drive and thumb drive don't work any more...

I have a dual 2GHz PowerPC G5...and i've been using my USB external hard drive and thumb drives for a year with no problems....but now when i plug them in, my mac does not see them...the lights on the external hard drive and thumb drives come on as normal but nothing else...it does this on all the USB ports(front and back) BUT my iPod, keyboard and mouse, and HP printer (that use the same USB ports) works fine....(also i'm running Mac OS X 10.5.2)....help....

You can't transfer songs from iPod to computer using iTunes, except for songs that you purchased from the iTunes Store (you can also re-download them using the iTunes Store Purchased screen). However, there are third-party methods and utilities that can transfer song files from iPod to computer. If you do a Google search on something like "ipod transfer," you should get some links.
Once the song files are on your computer, drag the files (or the folder containing the files) to the iTunes window, to add them to the iTunes library.

How to connect external hard drive and DV camera

I have just bought a macbook pro with only one firewire 400 port. My question is, what is the best way to connect up an external hard drive and a DV camera so I can import video to Final Cut. Should I be plugging the camera directly into the external hard drive's firewire port and conecting the hard drive to mac via USB or connecting DV to mac via Firewire and then mac to hard drive via USB? Or does it make no difference!
Thanks in advance

If the drive has two firewire ports, connect the camera to one FW port on the back of the drive and connect the drive to the computer using the other port.
If the drive does not have two firewire ports, you'll need an Expresscard 34 firewire card to create a second firewire bus. The card goes in the slot on the side of the computer. Hook up either the camera or the drive to it.
The cards can be found online for a reasonable sum of money.
Do not use USB.
Good luck.
x

Hard Drive and Desktop Icons Have Disappeared From Dessktop

I can locate all the files and access them via "search" and clicking on them, but can't see them on the desktop.
Problem started with difficulty using Spotlight, which eventually led to a freeze and when I restarted, the images were gone.
Have already tried: (1) Disk First Aid, which found a couple of minor problems, but was unable to complete the verification test,stating "underlying disk needs repair" and "1 HFS volume checked needs repair. . . (2) Trashing the Finder preference (which had no effect) . . . and (3) Restarting — both from the existing OS, as well as the Mac OS X Install CD. Tried several times with the latter (holding down the C key), but it did not override the damaged system.
Can't remember the last time I had to reinstall a system, bu it probably was at least 5 years Ago, if not longer, so am hoping to avoid that. Also have found a few directions online (and in an Apple document) that require rewriting a script, which scares me even more, since I've NEVER done that and am concerned about messing up my system even further.
Am hoping there's an easy fix that does not require taking the computer in for service.

Sorry. I am NOT using 10.2.
I am using 10.4.11!
Also working with the original set of disks that came with the computer.
The first time I tried to boot with the Software Install disk, I assumed it had not booted properly, because the entire desktop (such as it was . . . i.e., just a few assorted folders, apps down the side and icons for the install disk appeared with with it.)
The same thing happened when I held down the shift key while booting.
Both times when I tried to use Disk First Aid, a message stated that it was not compatible with the current OS.
And no, I did not think to see which OS was active either time. But I wouldn't be surprised to find 9.2 (Classic), . . . one of the operating systems identified on the disk) which was available as an option at that time, for users still using software that had not yet been updated by the manufacturers.
But even if I had thought of that, I probably also would have tried to avoid loading OS 10.0.4 if I didn't have to. (Why take an unnecessary step backward?)
Fast forward to today: My computer is still working. Miraculously, Spotlight has reappeared (on its own). I think I can access all or most of the files on my computer by using "search" . . . but the only ones currently on my desktop (and reappearing after a shutdown) are the few that op up at random, when Iaccidentally hit the "G" spot.
The icons for the hard drive and other peripherals still don't show up . . . which, in combiation with the missing file icons suggests to me that I still have a problem,which I would rather repair now, than wait for it to multiply or cause a major, irretrievable crash.

Can I connect an externa hard drive and access files from 2 or more computers wirelessly?

Is there a way to connect an external hard drive to my linksys modem and access the files wirelessly by 2 or more computers?
I have a wireless G wrt54G modem working on windows XP a desktop and laptop on my home system. I have a WD “my book” external hard drive with a usb interface. My modem does not have a USB interface.
At work I also have 4 laptops using XP and vista and looking to have them all access an external hard drive and printers. I have not selected a hard drive for the work system.
If yes can I add 2 or more printers and print form all connected computers?
If yes, is it possible to access the files of the external hard drive (home system) via the internet?
Thanks in advance for all your help

First, your WRT54G is a router, not a modem. Different function.
Yes, you can "connect an external hard drive... and access the files wirelessly by 2 or more computers," just not that external hard drive. You need one that supports network attachment, with an ethernet connection.
And you can print to printers from various computer, again if the printers are made to support that.
The answer to your last question is maybe. Oh, it's definitely possible, but may require learning about static IP addresses, dynamic DNS, firewalls, port forwarding, file sharing...

FW800 Exteral Hard drive and a port multiplier?

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