Mixing HDs with FW400 and FW800 in a daisy chain

I have a 360GB with two FW ports and two Quadra D2s with one FW400 and two FW800 ports. Using the three HDs -
Can I Connect FW400 to FW400 then out via FW800 into FW800 then out via FW400 into my eMac?

So it would seem that no matter how the two FW types are threaded between the three HDs the route is open and the chain runs at the 'slower' speed..
As I have yet to format one of the Quadra's can I put it into the chain and then Format it, or should it be formatted with the orher two HDs diconnected from the chain?
Cheers

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The much debated FW400 and FW800 issue, my final verdict.

Ok, so there has been many conflicting theoretical opinions on how FW400 and FW800 work together on the Macbook Pro's. So I went ahead and conducted some tests with my Triple Interface WD Mybook Pro 500GB and M-Audio Firewire Solo using XBench 1.3
You can see the figures at http://memo.tv/mbp_fwtests.htm. (If I had used a FW800 Stripe set such as the Mybook Pro 1GB the difference in performance would probably be much bigger as the current bottle neck in some of these tests is probably the disk and not the interface).
My results indicate that:
Running the disk on its own in FW800 with no FW audio interface provides by far the best HDD performance
As soon as you connect a FW400 device, the FW800 performance drops to FW400 levels. It does not matter whether the FW400 is daisy chained off the FW800, or connected to a seperate FW400 - the disk always drops to FW400 - and for a £2K 'professional' machine that s*cks big fat donkey b*lls
Even having the disk on its own on FW400, seems better than connecting it on FW800 and having another FW400 device connected (that makes sense I guess).
I had no audio dropouts in any config while the tests were running.
Running iTunes and streaming audio (from radio) while the tests were running had no/minimal impact on test results
USB2 performance for disks are a helluva lot slower than FW400 and should be avoided if any kind of disk performance is needed.
I guess this clears up the myth that if you daisy chain a FW400 device off a FW800, the FW800 works at full bandwidth.
Now of course these are the results that I got. I don't know if I have a healthy mac or not! So I am very eager to find out how other people's mac respond to similar tests... so if you are in doubt, please go and download xbench, try a few different configs, run the Disk Test every time, and lets see the results!
cheers,
MacBook Pro C2D 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9) Week 46 Build

to be fair, not even the desktop macs come with more than one firewire buss built in. many ports, yes. but one buss. so, when you realise that your requirements will outstrip the bandwidth you can get from that one buss, you have to consider your other options. luckily for you, you have a macbook pro, which has a PCexpress card slot. this means you can actually add another _totally independent_ firewire 800 buss, via a card. you'd have to do the same thing on a mac pro tower if you needed it, just with a different kind of card.
I doubt that there are many if any laptops available that come with more than one firewire buss built-in, regardless of how many ports they put on them. so your £2K machine isn't really the ripoff that you are feeling it is.. particularly given that it has this vital expansion capability via the PCexpress slot, which will resolve your firewire issues perfectly via the addition of an inexpensive card.
you can even choose to buy an eSATA card instead of a FW800 one, and use an external drive with an eSATA connector. this will give you even faster disk performance than FW800, and still leave your built-in firewire buss free for your audio interface.
btw, one thing you should know. m-audio are notorious for bad drivers. it's quite common for users of other firewire audio interfaces (like RME for example) to have far less, or even no drop out issues at all in sharing a drive and the interface on the one buss. it's possible that it's just your m-audio device that refuses to make any effort to share the buss bandwidth with your drive. and it's also possible that your western digital drive is not a good player on mac firewire either. I recall reading somewhere about WD drives having some issues or less than optimal performance on macs.
in any case, the suggestion of using an inexpensive card to add another high speed buss to your machine will work regardless of what your devices are and how bad or good their firewire use is, cos they'll then have their own uninterrupted buss.

Lacie Extreme mounts with USB and FW800 but not FW400

Shows as USB and FW800 only on Powerbook G4 1.67 15" 10.4.9 2Gb
I'm not being dismissive but I have explored all obvious options;
Drive mounts OK FW400 on another Mac with the same cable.
Shows in System Profiler on all three interfaces on other Mac.
FW CD writer exhibits identical symtoms.
Any ideas please?
Cheers

Hi,
I've just bought a brand new LaCie rugged 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive. It came with 2 cables. One for power from the powerbook and the other to transer data. The manual said "no drivers or installation is required. The drive should mount in a few seconds after plugging it in." 3 attempts - LaCie just doesn't mount. I have no idea what to do. Please HELP!!
Thanks
Powerbook G4 Aluminium Mac OS X (10.4.10) 1GB Ram

Daisy chain fw400 and fw800 bad?

I have two lacie rugged external hds that I want to connect to my mbp. Both drives have 1 fw400, 1 fw800 and 1 usb2 connection. I was going to daisy chain the drives via fw800 and then connect one of the drives to my mbp via fw400. I was told by a reputable professional that mixing ports when daisy chaining will cause problems and prove to be unreliable. What do you guys think?
Thanks,
Dave

When chaining always have the fastest drive first (closest), otherwise it will run at the slower speed i.e. MBP - Firewire800 - Firewire400

Using FW400 and FW800 devices simultaneously

I noticed that as I am using my external FW400 iSight camera that Time Machine suspends backups on my FW800 G-Drive. Is the FW800 logic sharing logic resources with FW400?

There's only a single Firewire Bus ... when connecting two devices of different speeds always connect the fastest to the MBP first then the slower one into that i.e. put the fastest link in the chain first or all devices will operate at the slower speed.

Downloaded LR 5 on a second computer, got it mixed up with CC and now "Desktop is deactivated" and...please renew...BUT I CAN'T FIND A DIALOG BOX IN WHICH TO PUT MY SERIAL NUMBER?

I downloaded Lightroom 5 on a second computer (desktop), but during installation I seen to have it got mixed up with CC which I don't want to engage in now. Now "Desktop has been deactivated..." and would I please renew membership... BUT I CAN'T FIND A DIALOG BOX IN WHICH TO PUT MY SERIAL NUMBER.

if you don't have/want a cc subscription on your computer, uninstall the cc app and then use the cleaner - Use the CC Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems | CC, CS3-CS6
if necessary reinstall lightroom and license with your serial number -
Downloads available:
Suites and Programs: CC 2014 | CC | CS6 | CS5.5 | CS5 | CS4 | CS3
Acrobat: XI, X | 9,8 | 9 standard
Premiere Elements: 13 | 12 | 11, 10 | 9, 8, 7
Photoshop Elements: 13 |12 | 11, 10 | 9,8,7
Lightroom: 5.7.1| 5 | 4 | 3
Captivate: 8 | 7 | 6 | 5
Contribute: CS5 | CS4, CS3
Download and installation help for Adobe links
Download and installation help for Prodesigntools links are listed on most linked pages. They are critical; especially steps 1, 2 and 3. If you click a link that does not have those steps listed, open a second window using the Lightroom 3 link to see those 'Important Instructions'.

AppleTV and external hard drive daisy chaining

Hi,
Was wondering if this is possible, I have a large collection of music and dvd which I have ripped into itunes. This is now getting so big that I need to do something. I understand that you can connect an appletv to the tv and access itunes through an external hard drive connected to my MAC. However my question is this.
I have found an hard drive its by lacie called the lacie d2 this drive can be daisy chain through its firewire connection. Therefor was wondering if I brought one of these drives and daisy chained another as my collection grows would this still be accessible through appletv.

I had drives being backed up to drives on the same chain while working on another drive in the chain, or something along those lines. To be honest performance had dropped but not to any extent where it became a problem.
My biggest issue was that my drives were all 2 TB and I had need for contiguous space that exceeded that. For example my itunes media was more than 2 TB and it was simply more convenient on a 4 TB drive rather than 2 x 2 TB.
My new 4 TB drives have an eSATA connection which I decided to use by installing an eSATA card in my mac. I now have 3 x 4TB eSATA drives and 5 x 2TB FW800 drives, my e SATA controller has 4 ports and will allow me to continue to expand, as I could eventually use 5 x 2 TB drives in an array attached to each port if I ever needed them.
In addition to the possibility of greater contiguous storage eSATA runs at 3 Gbps in comparison to firewire's 800 Mbps.
Don't get me wrong firewire never really became a problem.

Using iMovie6 with projects on external FW400 and FW800 drives ...SLOW!

Shouldn't iMovie6 work smoothly with movie projects stored on external Firewire 400 or 800 hard-drives?____ ...or am I expecting too much?!!
With the FW400 drive, the performance I'm experiencing is unacceptable. It's excruciatingly slow (even simply mouse/slider movements take forever) and the playback is so choppy, it's useless. (this is after converting an iMovie3 project to iMovie6 -- could this be a factor too?__)
Those on FW800 seem to work better (as they should) but even though the audio seems OK, the video playback is very jerky and it still takes a few seconds for it to respond to any mouse action.
Is FW400 simply too slow for iMovie?____
I presume USB2.0 would be just as bad.

Is FW400 simply too slow for iMovie?
Both types of FireWire drives should work fine. I'd look for another cause.
If your camcorder is a Canon, search the forum for how to avoid FireWire conflicts.
Otherwise, perhaps there's a clue here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1852869#1852869
Try resetting your FireWire ports? Disconnect all FireWire devices, do a Shut Down, disconnect your Mac's power cord from the wall outlet, wait 15 minutes, then reboot.
Karl

FW400 and FW800

Hi.
Okay, so recently I got a FW400 PCMCIA card to give me a dedicated buss for running FW400 devices off of, so that I could utilise the full potential of my FW800 external hard drive on the internal buss.
But, I've noticed that, when the FW400 PCMCIA card is connected, the connection speed on my FW800 internal buss drops down to FW400 (I am checking this via the System Profiler).
I am stumped, since as far as I know, this shouldn't happen, since both busses should be independent of each other.
As soon as I power down and remove the PCMCIA card, the internal buss speed goes back up to FW800.
Does anybody have any ideas why this is happening?
Thanks,
onlyone-jc.

Yes, you'll find that here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=442212&tstart=30
It has been archived for some reason, thus no more posts can be added to it, otherwise I would have posted there instead. It seems no resolution was found either, so maybe somebody can post a resolution up in here?
Both busses (the Powerbook's internal FireWire buss, and the FireWire buss provided by the PCMCIA card) should remain independent, and thus allow the internal buss to remain open at 800Mbps transfer speeds. But, that doesn't seem to be the case here?
The only way that a FW400 device should prioritise itself over a FW800 device, would be if they were both connected to the Powerbook ports, in which are both connected to the same FireWire buss, thus meaning that they are not able to act independently of each other.
As was said in the linked thread, surely there's a way to prioritise either buss, or something similar?
Can anybody help? Are there any official Apple technicians around here? Or, somebody with the right know-how?
Thanks,
onlyone-jc.

C++: Mixing cout with sprintf and strings

I'm writing a C++ program, writing to sysout using cout. Because iostream's formatting codes are so completely bizarre and incomprehensible to me, I want to use sprintf() to build the output string, and cout to print it. And I'm having the worst time of it, probably because of not completely understanding const.
char buffer[81]; // +sprintf char[] buffer.+ *How is a programmer meant to post code fragments to this forum when brackets, pluses, underscores, and asterisks are interpreted as markup?????*+
string s = "%-" + itos(longest) + "s "; // +itos() converts int to string. it works correctly.+
char * c = s.c_str(); // +convert format string to a char*, which sprintf requires+
* ERROR: invalid conversion from "const char *" to "char *" *
sprintf(buffer, c, (n < wordvec.size()) ? wordvec[n] : ""); //
* WARNING: cannot pass objects of non-POD type ... call will abort at runtime
cout << buffer;
Can anyone advise me on what is the right way to do this, without having to learn iostream manipulators and other grossness? (s)printf is SO easy....
Thanks,
Chap

Chap Harrison wrote:
char buffer[81]; // +sprintf char[] buffer.+ *How is a programmer meant to post code fragments to this forum when brackets, pluses, underscores, and asterisks are interpreted as markup?????*+
string s = "%-" + itos(longest) + "s "; // +itos() converts int to string. it works correctly.+
char * c = s.c_str(); // +convert format string to a char*, which sprintf requires+
* ERROR: invalid conversion from "const char *" to "char *" *
sprintf(buffer, c, (n < wordvec.size()) ? wordvec[n] : ""); //
* WARNING: cannot pass objects of non-POD type ... call will abort at runtime
cout << buffer;
</div>
Wordvec appears to be a std::string. You will have to convert it before you can print it. As for the const problem, there isn't much I can tell you. c_str() returns a const char *. You can't/shouldn't cast that into a char *. In fact, you don't even need to do that at all.
sprintf(buffer, "%-*s", longest, n < wordvec.size()) ? wordvec[n].c_str() : ");

Firewire Problem - But which Interface (FW400 or FW800)?

I'm running 10.4.11 on a Dual 2.5 GHz G5. I've recently started getting errors like the following:
Feb 4 20:45:11 G5 kernel[0]: /SourceCache/AppleFWOHCI/AppleFWOHCI-253.4.1/AppleFWOHCI.cpp 3539: ERROR: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
Feb 4 20:45:24 G5 kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: 151 bus resets in last minute.
Feb 4 20:48:36 G5 kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: 94 bus resets in last minute.
Feb 4 20:51:48 G5 kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: 73 bus resets in last minute.
I have numerous hard drives connected to both FW400 and FW800 ports. I also have an EyeTV 500 connected to FW400.
My question is, to shorten the troubleshooting process, does anyone know if this message is specific to the FW400 or the FW800 bus?
For that matter, does this suggest a software issue, or a hardware issue with an external device, or a hardware issue with the FW interface inside the G5?
Any thoughts on a fix would be most appreciated!
Thanks!
-- Jim

Hi-
My question is, to shorten the troubleshooting process, does anyone know if this message is specific to the FW400 or the FW800 bus?
Not sure which port is using the ID 42.
I do know that all ports, FW400 and 800 use the same controller and power supply.
The total power available to the combined firewire ports is 15 watts.
It could very well be that you have an excessive power draw on one of the ports, thus causing the continual reset of the bus.
I have numerous hard drives connected to both FW400 and FW800 ports. I also have an EyeTV 500 connected to FW400.
Of these, how many have their own power supply? If relying mostly on bus power (no external supply) then the power draw could very well be the issue.
As well, daisy chaining can result in oddities and errors due to various external device controller chips.
Rather than daisy chaining, placing a powered hub (repeater) between the tower and the devices can eliminate power and controller conflicts.
For that matter, does this suggest a software issue, or a hardware issue with an external device, or a hardware issue with the FW interface inside the G5?
My initial feeling is that this is due to external hardware factors.
Unfortunately, disconnection of all devices, and adding one at a time is the only way that I know how to troubleshoot.
I've checked all the Developer pages available, and cannot find a document describing the FW port ID assignment.
BTW, I don't care how many makers say that you can daisy chain 62 devices per port. This may be the capability of the FW controller to ID each device, but *does not* address power draw and controller conflict issues.
I have seen too many reports of trouble with daisy chaining, or overloading the FW bus power supply, to believe the marketing hype regarding this matter......

Audio Distortion on FW400 Audio Interface Daisy Chained to FW800 Hard Drive

Hi everyone! I’m an experienced Mac user in need of help resolving FireWire device issues.
I received my 27” i7 iMac a couple of weeks ago running 10.6.2. After a long process of migrating over from my 9+ year old Dual 500 MHz G4 PowerMac tower, I was excited to set up two 1TB drives inside an OWC Mercury Elite Quad-Interface Dual HD enclosure via FW800. I then daisy chained my Focusrite Saffire 10 audio interface (FW400) to the HD enclosure via a FW800 to FW400 converter cable. To reiterate:
i7 iMac (FW800 port) --> OWC Mercury Pro Quad-Interface Dual HD Case with 2X 1TB drives (FW800) --> Focusrite Saffire 10 audio interface (FW400)
Although a lot of people may disagree, I wasn’t concerned about having my FW800 hard drives drop down to FW400 speeds because of the slower audio interface. I have read enough about the 1394 FW protocol and its ability to use something called beta clouds, allowing both FW400 and FW800 daisy chained devices to operate at their maximum speeds. So far, so good. The drives are reading/writing data fast.
As many studio audiophiles have said, you should separate your audio recordings and projects from your startup disk. I’ve done so. However, call me naïve, but I did not imagine that every time my external drives read or wrote data, my audio interface would go into a state of distortion (like raising the gain on a track as high as it can go). When the activity of the disk drops below a certain level, the audio interface usually switches back to clean pristine audio. I am experiencing this within a studio environment and with simple CoreAudio iTunes playback via my audio interface. How is this possible? Am I doing something wrong or is there a blatant limitation with the FW chipset Apple is using for their single bus in the new iMacs? If anyone can provide me with a solution or a convenient work around, I will be very grateful!

Thank you for the feedback, Rick. To shed some light on daisy chaining FW800 with FW400 devices, I provide the following quote from one FireWire technical article I came across on the web:
+"The concept of beta clouds allows FireWire to keep all devices on the bus to operating at their maximum speeds. Devices are cluster together on a logical level in a cloud. The cloud operates as a single block at 800 Mb/sec. The borders of these clouds are where legacy devices are connected, operating normally. Each device operates at its highest speed."+
In short, beta clouds allow both devices to operate at their highest speeds.
Both the audio interface and the external hard drive enclosure has its own, connected power source.
I wish I had the option to use USB2 with my audio interface, but it only has a FW400 connection.

Fw800 daisy chain problems - crashing MBP

I just had two massive crashes on a 6-month old MCP with new external FW800 drives daisy-chained. The first crash happened when I tried to hook and "old" (5 years) FW400 hard drive within the daisy-chain of newer FW800 hard drives. The second happened when all 3 of my new (8-months old) FW800 drives were connected: one of the drives just spun its wheels and never showed any data. After shutdown / reboot it's ok - but there are 1.3TB of info on it.
Questions: How many FW800 drives can you daisy-chain out of the one FW800 bus on a MacBook Pro?
Or is it a length of cable issue? Or is hooking up the older FW400 into the chain the problem?
I researched online and found multiple posts that said you can daisy-chain Sixty-Three hard drives. This sounds impossible and unbelievable given what I have just experience with THREE hard drives.

The problem is that this could be tough to troubleshoot if it is a power supply, as the offending drive will attempt to pull the juice it needs to keep running from the FireWire bus.

Daisy-chaining firewire 400 and firewire 800?

I would like to daisy-chain two Western Digital MyBook Pros to a Macbook:
- FW 400 from Macbook to first drive
- FW 800 between the drives
Would this work or not? I have one of those, they have 2 x FW 800, 1 x FW 400, 1 x USB at back.
(If not, I'll buy a 'Premium' which has 2 x FW 400, and 1 x USB..)

JoeyR wrote:
I'm not sure if the hardware in the first drive, that's connected by firewire 400 is "smart" enough to jump the data over to the FW800 connectors for daisy chaining.
Just pulled this from the WD site. I would say this indicates it would work. You won't get more speed but they should work daisy chained. This indicates the drive is smart enough to do this.
+Question: Will Western Digital FireWire 400 (1394a) external hard drives work connected to a FireWire 800 (1394b) port?+
+Answer: The FireWire 800 Specification (1394b) states that FireWire 400 devices will work while connected to a FireWire 800 (1394b) port. The FireWire 400 cable (4-6 pin or 6-6 pin) will not connect to a FireWire 800 port (9 pin) therefore you will need to connect the hard drive using a FireWire 400 to FireWire 800 cable (1394a to 1394b cable). These cables are available at most computer stores.+

Will Final Cut work with 13 1TB drives daisy chained togerher

Will Final Cut work with 13 (1TB) Firewire 800 drives daisy chained (78 feet) together? Has any one done this? If so were there any problems?

Thanks for your advice guys.
I did run into problems, had to start computer with only my pre-existing SATA and FireWire 800 drives (connected to the back of my Mac), then I made sure the 14 FireWire 800 drives were turned off, attached the FireWire 800 cable to the front of my Mac, turned on the drives from closest to furthest in the drive chain (6'cables between each drive) and all of the drives came up on the desktop.
When I opened the FCP project that had media associated with the 14 drives I got the spinning wheel of death. After rebooting and restarting the gang of 14 I thought I would try to open one of the drives on the desktop, again the spinning wheel of death. Will move to plan B - 9" cables, plan C is installing the drives into two drive towers.

Mixing HDs with FW400 and FW800 in a daisy chain

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