Is it possible to daisy chain a thunderbolt drive between 2 imacs?

is it possible to daisy chain a thunderbolt drive between 2 imacs?

You can connect two thunderbolt harddrives to one computer, but you cannot connect two computers to one harddrive.  That would result in a data signal conflict.
Hope this helps

Similar Messages

  • Can I daisy chain two Thunderbolt displays to the new MacBook Airs (July 2011)?

    I have last year's MacBook Air -- probably the best Mac I've ever had and I've had a few. I looked at using multiple displays last year, but the reviews for the major 3rd-party solutions really demonstrate how little is possible.
    I see Apple says you can double up on displays for the MacBook Pro (I have a pre-Thunderbolt one unfortunately), what about the new (July 2011) MacBook Airs?
    Anyone tried? Anyone know?
    (I have a 30" Dell display, but it is, and always has been, very flakey when it comes to connecting to a Mac laptop).

    You can thank Intel for that.
    The sandy bridge chips all have integrated graphics, and before they were released -- they took nvidia to court claiming they didn't have a "license" to make GPU chipsets for the sandy bridge line.  Intel won, and consumers lost.
    The solution most manufacturers are using for notebooks is graphics switching (nvidia optimus like technology) -- which basically uses a discreet GPU along side the intel integrated GPU, and switches between the two instantaenously based on the workload and \ or battery life -- this is how the macbook pro's with the ATI gpus work.
    Since there isn't enough space physically inside a macbook air for a discreet GPU, and since no company in the world is allowed to make a shared GPU for intel's sandy bridge chipsets -- the only solution is to use the integrated graphics that is in the processors -- Intel HD 3000.  Intel basically has the monopoly here...there is no legal solution in the world another company can provide thanks to our wonderful court system
    Wanna know the really sad part about the Intel HD 3000 GPU?  The Nvidia 320M (the GPU used in the previous model 2010 macbook air -- chip was released to the market in April of last year) actually out performs it in some benchmarks -- that's right, a 1+ year old shared gpu from nvidia outperforms Intel's 2011 integrated graphics.
    Intel ***** at graphics, period.
    The only other solution I can think of is for you to get the "Echo Express" product from Sonnet:
    http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/index.html
    It's basically an external bay that will allow you to put a PCIe GPU inside it, and it would then connect via thunderbolt to the macbook air.
    You would then use the minidisplayport connectors on the PCIe GPU to connect to the apple displays -- I believe any modern ATI or Nvidia GPU can support up to 3 or 4 external displays.
    Unfortunately, sonnet's bay is not released yet, and you'd also have to make sure the PCIe GPU you get supports both thunderbolt AND os x....so yeah, kind of slim pickens right now
    EDIT:
    So apparently the macbook pros can daisy chain two thunderbolt displays -- Apple has a picture of it on their site:
    http://storeimages.apple.com/1867/as-images.apple.com/is/image/AppleInc/MC914_AV 7?wid=1200&hei=1200&fmt=jpeg&qlt=95&op_sharpen=0&resMode=bicub&op_usm=0.5,0.5,0, 0&iccEmbed=0&layer=comp
    I just bought a new mac air too...I was gonna get a mbpro but they are just too expensive -- the one I configured was at around 3000$
    Wanna know what's lame about using the thunderbolt display with the mac air?  So the new mac air has the magsafe connector on one side and the thunderbolt connector on the other -- they're not on the same side like the macbook pro is (see picture) -- so basically the cable is going to have to slack around the back of the macbook air -- who designed that?  Must have been smoking some good meth ;p
    Message was edited by: NiqueXyZ

  • Daisy chain 2 thunderbolt displays by direct connect

    I was hoping to hook up 2 thunderbolt displays to a mac mini. With the way the screens are set up, they will be nearly 6' apart from each other, which makes connecting the pigtail of screen two to screen one impossible. I havent' been having a lot of luck with finding reviews of reliable extention cables that are known to work, but I have been seeing a ton of thunderbolt to thunderbolt cables (6' and 9'). Is it possible to daisy chain from the 1 open thunderbolt port on display one to display two and leaving the pigtail detached?
    Thanks!

    Much obliged!

  • MacBook Air Thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapter and daisy-chaining external FW drives

    Here is my problem—I have a MacBook Air 13" running Mavericks to which I want to attach external FW drive(s). This is easily achievable by using the Thunderbolt-to-FW 800 adapter. And the adapter works great until I try to daisy-chain two external drives. If I attach a second drive to the first one, it immediately unmounts the first drive and I get the 'improperly disconnected drive' warning.
    I seem to recall that this was doable in Mountain Lion (about 85% sure). So is this a software or hardware problem? And, to go even deeper into the weeds, my two external FW drives are self-powered (no external power supply). So if I got wall warts for these drives, would it work? Or am I remembering this incorrectly and the adapter never supported daisy-chaining?
    The external drives are a pair of G-Tech G-Drive minis, but one is a year to 18-months older than the other one, which means it probably has an older FireWire chipset, but on the other hand, they do mount successfully as self-powered FW 800 drives from a native FW 800 port, or even from a daisy-chain originating from a FW 800 port. Anyone have any suggestions?

    I have 4 FW devices chained together and use the TB->FW dongle. They all have power bricks. I have several bus powered devices. Some are quirky, some just don't function, two work reliably. There's no question it is all about how much power they need and TB doesn’t supply enough. Bottom line for me: my bus powered FW drives are soley relegated to use with my last FW equipped computer and when it does they will too.

  • Daisy-chain a thunderbolt external drive & thunderbolt display?

    Although you can't daisy chain multiple thunderbolt displays to the new (mid 2011) Air's are you able to connect a thunderbolt display and daisy chain a thunderbolt external hard drive?

    1. As stated in the questions and answers section of the link you posted, no.
    2. Connect it to the MacBook Pro, start File Sharing from the Sharing pane of System Preferences, and use the Connect to Server command in the Finder's Go menu on the iMac.
    (102303)

  • HT5299 Can 2 daisy-chained firewire-800 drives be connected to 1 Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter?

    Can 2 daisy-chained firewire-800 drives be connected to 1 Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter?

    Nightwatch (NL) wrote:
    Thanks Steve!
    One more question: Stayed throughput speeds more or less the same as original Firewire (since all my movies are on external disks) or has it become significantly slower?
    I haven't done a careful side by side quantitative comparison of what I had on the older Macbook Pro (which had three Firewire800 disks chained together via FW800) versus the new Macbook Pro (which has thunderbolt into which I have connected three FW800 drives daisy chained via the adaptor), mainly because my employer supplied me with these computers and required I turn in the old one when they replenished it with the new one. However, I can say this -- one of the FW800 externals is used for Time Machine, another for making entire disk clones, and the third is for misc storage. I have seen Time Machine start up during a disk clone (with SuperDuper) and there seems to be no impact. The disk cloning is generally pretty intensive on disk and cpu resources, but thunderbolt seems to have a much bigger capacity for throughput than firewire and hence can apparently accommodate multiple streams of FW800 data going back and forth with no apparent impact on each other. The main limit seems to be the FW800 speed itself, not thunderbolt. I see ~ 60 MB/s or more which is as much as I have ever seen on FW800. Ultimately, the ideal setup will be thunderbolt drives daisy chained together, I would expect hundreds of MB/s, but I don't see many of these thunderbolt drives on the market yet. Even better would be solid state drives ...

  • Daisy chain two external drives via Firewire, then connect one via USB to the TC?

    Hi,
    I have two external drives that have both Firewire and USB ports. My 1st generation 500 gb Time Capsule (maybe all of them?) only has USB ports so up til now, I have connected one or the other drive via USB. (I've tried to connect both to a powered USB hub but one drive has problems showing up. At this point I only use the one drive that shows up and connect it directly with no hub to the Time Capsue.)
    My question is: Can I daisy chain the two drives via Firewire and then connect one of them (probably the one that has no problems connecting with USB) to the Time Capsule via USB?
    Second, somewhat-related problem...
    I don't know why one drive isn't connecting very well when directly connected to the Time Capsule. Both are Fantom drives. One is a 1TB, the one that has prblems connecting is a 250GB. I've tried connecting directly or through a powered hub. The 1B has no problems, the 250 gb won't show up most of the time and disconnects itself fairly quickly if it does connect. I've switched cables; that hasn't helped. The 1TB stays connected most of the time but sometimes it disconnects too. I suspect the Time Capsule just isn't able to deal with external drives so I don't puch it. It would be nice to be able to have both drives accessable through the TC though.
    Thanks for any help.
    Cheers,
    John

    Doing some experimentation, connecting the drives directly to the MBP:
    - Neither of the two drives Firewire daisy-chained and going through the powered USB hub connected to the MBP mount. I was using old aliases on desktop.*They don't show up on network otherwise. (Each drive self-mounts with both Firewire and USB direct connections.)
    *Even after making new aliases, neither drive will mount using their new aliases when directly connected (not through hub) with USB or Firewire (and Thunderbolt adapter.) That's weird.
    - Both the 240 gb and the 1TB drives going through powered hub connected to MBP mount by themselves.
    - Two drives daisy-chained via Firewire and one drive connected to the MBP via Firewire (and Thunderbolt adapter) self-mount. No surprise there but that doesn't help me as I want to have the drives further away from the MBP and connected to the Time Capsule, which doesn't have a Firewire port anyway...
    - All of the USB and the Firewire cables work as does the Thunderbolt adapter. I tested them.
    I wonder.... I have a Firewire to what appears to be an Ethernet connector. I wonder if that would be any good. I'm afraid to try it though...

  • Daisy Chaining MULTIPLE firewire drives...

    Hello...
    I am working on a large video project and have 7 500 GB firewire 800/400 drives, and 1 macbook pro (with no firewire 800 port).
    I am working with DVCPRO HD footage so high speed is important. Is there a loss of speed when you daisy chain this many drives together? Any general rules when it comes to doing this? right now, I just have them all chained one, after another with 800 cables, and then going into the computer with a 400 cable.

    I ran into problems once when chaining 7 or 8 drives. I was told that there is is a maximum cable length you can get to (can't remember if it was 10 or 15 feet) when daisy chaining after which you can run into problems.
    Although it's possible I just had a bad cable in the line, I never checked, I just picked up 6 inch cables to use between drives and it solved the problem.
    rh
    PS I thought all the MacBook Pro's had one 800 port.

  • Daisy chaining Firewire 800 drives

    I am considering daisy-chaining a pair of WD My Passport Studio drives off my mid-2007 iMac's Firewire port.
    I'm already using one of these drives for my data, having replaced the internal HDD with an SSD. I'm about to buy a second drive to replace an old and noisy USB drive for Time Machine backups. Will I get decent performance from this daisy-chained FW setup (Im guessing that I should, at 800 mb/s full duplex).
    FYI, the WD My Passport Studio drives are FireWire-powered and have have no external power.
    So, is this a good or dumb idea? If you know FireWire (I do not) I'd be interedted to know its pros and cons.
    Thanks.

    Daisy chaining FW 800 drives works just fine, I did it for years before upgrading.

  • Daisy chain 3 thunderbolt displays to MBP 15"

    Hello,
    A simple question here,
    I would like to know if there is a way to daisy chain 3 (three) thunderbolt displays to a 15" MacBook Pro, maybe if the laptop is in clampshell mode?
    Thanks for any help

    Two:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4885

  • Daisy chain an external drive

    Just set up new iMac with a 2TB external Lacie drive, partitioned for Time Machine and SuperDuper, and connected with Firewire 800.
    I want to also use my old 500GB Lacie external drive for temporarily holding unedited movies, whilst I work on them in Final Cut or iMovie.
    Can I connect the old external drive to the new external drive using a Firewire 400 cable and without adversely effecting my set-up?
    Looking ahead, is it true that there will be Thunderbolt adaptors to enable a second or third Firewire 800 connection(s)?
    Would the above options be preferable to a Firewire Hub?
    All views appreciated.

    tom lawrence wrote:
    I want to also use my old 500GB Lacie external drive for temporarily holding unedited movies, whilst I work on them in Final Cut or iMovie.
    Yes as long as both are self powered, then daisy chaining them should not be a problem. If one drive is bus powered (not self powered) then it should be connect to a powered drive at the end of the chain, instead of into the iMac or mid chain where 3 or more drives are chained together.
    FireWire: Frequently Asked Questions
    tom lawrence wrote:
    Can I connect the old external drive to the new external drive using a Firewire 400 cable and without adversely effecting my set-up?
    Yes a FireWire 400 drive can be plugged into the 400 port of a 800 External Hard Drive (if so equipped) or into the spare FireWire 800 port by using either a 6 to 9 adapter or 6 to 9 FireWire cable.
    Amazon.com: elago FireWire 400 to 800 Adapter for Mac: Electronics
    Amazon.com: Tripp Lite F017-006 IEEE 1394b Firewire 800 Gold Hi-speed Cable, 9pin/6pin - 6ft: Electronics
    NewerTech FIR1369AD 9-pin (FW800) to 6-pin (FW400)... in stock at OWC
    NewerTech 1394B96036 FireWire 800/400 1394B/A 9 Pin... in stock at OWC
    Dennis

  • Good Idea, Bad Idea: Daisy-chaining external hard drives

    I'm about to buy a White Macbook (maxing out RAM) which has one Firewire 400 port.
    I currently use a Firebox to record audio and I know that I will need an external hard drive. The consensus is that Firewire is far superior than USB 2.0 due to a stable transfer rate.
    However, I'm wondering which is superior in this case- getting a Firewire 400 external hard drive (7200rpm of course) and daisy-chaining it, or getting a USB 2.0 hard drive?
    I typically only record 2 tracks at a time with my Firebox, but I would prefer it if I could use it to its full capacity and record 6 if I wanted to. I assume that this will have a great effect on it when daisy-chained.
    With my current machine (details listed below), I get messages all the time from Logic Pro telling me I'm overloading it or maxing it out or whatever. In buying a new machine, I strongly desire not to have these problems again, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    I'm under the impression there isn't a laptop being currently produced that has two Firewire 400 slots and is capable of running Logic Pro. Apple's offering has two choices - 1 Firewire 400 slot in the White Macbook for $999, and 1 Firewire 800 slot in the Macbook Pro line, starting at $1999. It is absolutely horrific, I know, but I didn't design the current line.
    Since the biggest advantages between the $1999 model and the $999 model have very little to do with audio editing, I decided against the extra grand for some fancy new toys.
    Advantages of higher-end:
    A) Better graphics card
    B) 0.3 Ghz more processing power
    C) multi-touch trackpad
    D) environmentally friendly
    E) possibility of installing a solid state drive- at 128 GB.
    My current machine was upgraded once, but was quickly smited back to original specs by a power surge (seriously- all I lost were the upgrades). It has since then been a bit of a finicky computer. It freezes now and then, and the kernel errors are frustrating. Plus, it's noisy.
    So yeah- I would totally take you up on the notion of upgrading my current machine first, but it's not really worth the trouble anymore.
    I've also posted before and have been told that pretty much any Mac I buy now will be far superior than my current machine.
    That being said, I suppose I ought to look into USB 2.0 external drives.
    Does anyone have any suggestions? Advice for what to look for? If I could find one that is 9600rpms, will that make a difference or is 7600rpm pretty much the max for the 400mbs transfer speed? Any suggestions for external drives that use both Firewire and USB 2.0? Any other ideas in general?

  • Daisy chaining mixed connectivity drives

    I have an iBook (OS X 10.5.8 Leopard) with 2 USB 2.0 ports and a Firewire 400 port. The USB ports are in use, as is a hub plugged in one of them. I have a CalDigit AV drive connected to the iBook via a Firewire 400 - Firewire 800 cable. The drive also has an additional Firewire 800 port and a USB 3.0 port.
    I'm wondering if a USB 3.0 drive can be daisy chained to the CalDigit drive through the USB 3.0 port, even if it is connected to the computer via Firewire 400.  If this is possible, I realize I would only get Firewire 400 speed, which is okay.
    Or do I need to find another Firewire drive to daisy chain?
    Thanks

    For the most part, these drives with USB and FW don't share to the other;
    the intent was to allow either one or the other. FW for older Macs that may
    be able to boot from a HDD (with oxford chipset) or USB2.0/3.0 for storage
    or for newer Intel Macs that may boot a clone from USB. However a Mac
    could use FW or USB when both are available, separately to boot clones
    if the computer hardware supports both. And if the external HD does.
    Depending on the circuitry in the external enclosure, are the possibilities.
    A logic circuit and extra cost, may allow the ports to share data across
    the two separately supported channels. Lacking that, most can't do it.
    Usually that is because they are like different frequencies, no converter.
    However you could try. Or contact the maker, to see if you get a reply,
    then share that information along with enclosure brand/model number.
    That may be curious, conditional, if it were to work at all with one setup.
    Good luck

  • Daisy chain Voyager hard drives & iMac Intel Core2Duo (white model)

    It would appear that Voyager hard drive enclosures from Newertek won't allow you to daisy chain them via SATA. Yet they conveniently provide you with a SATA cable if you have an eSATA port on your Mac. Is there any sort of KVM switch/ hub that makes the SATA hard drives connect directly to each other via SATA instead of via the iMac's Firewire for data transfer.
    I'm finding I large gobs of data to transfer between two hard drives, and a dual drive enclosure never likes to remain mounted on my iMac no matter whom I buy, so I'm dealing with these Newertek Voyagers. The other thing that's messed up about these Newerteks is if both are plugged in to the two Firewire ports of my iMac, when I wake up in the morning, I can't eject either one without a force eject. I'm hoping if I can daisy chain them somehow by SATA I'll get faster data transfers, not have to copy back to my iMac everytime I want to copy to the other drive, and have more reliable connectivity with only one Firewire port of my iMac in use.

    You can get them - "firewire to sata bridges" is the term.
    I don't think it'll make any practical difference - writes will still have to go from one disk, through SATA to the firewire to the Mac, then back out the firewire to the other SATA. There's no controller to handle the direct connection.

  • Daisy chaining a FireWire drive

    I just bought a new 21.5 inch iMac, and I'm in the process of setting it up. I noticed it has one 800 FireWire port. I have a Pro Tools DigiRack with only 400 ports. I have an 800/400 cable, so I'll be able to connect it, and a seperate external hard drive with 800 ports.
    What I'm wondering is if it would be better to daisy chain the DigiRack off of the external hard drive and connect the drive to the iMac, or connect the Digirack to the iMac with an 800/400 cable, and run the external drive off of the Digirack? I'm curious if one way would be more efficient than the other, and also if the hard drive could handle the DigiRack feeding off of it.
    If I haven't totally confused everyone, I'd appreciate any thoughts.

    Hi
    Sorry to jump on this topic, but I have a query about the same thing. I need to run a firewire 800 external drive with a firewire 400 dv camera daisy chained to it from my MBP. What happens to the read speeds when daisy chaining externals? does it drop dramatically e.g by half if using two externals on the same port? My only other option is to use the external drive with USB2. but the drive is the priority! would that be faster than daisychaining on a FW800 port?

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