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.

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Recording onto external hard drives

I have been having trouble recording guitar with direct input. (I am probably getting the apogee one soon) The sound is in perfect time when I record it but when I play it back it is off time, and needs to be nudged to sound correct again. I have also been recording onto an external hard drive lately, will this effect the problem in any way? Do any of you record onto external drives or do you use the computers built in hard drive?

Sorry for the miss communication, the off timing occurs when I record onto my macbook pros internal hard drive (and that was with garageband but I am now using logic express). I don't know what the rotational speed is, but I have three external hard drives, is there a way to tell? Do you record onto an external drive or the built in drive?
Thanks, Jv-

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UserEventAgent won't let me eject my external hard drive, and other problems

I'm running a MacBook Pro (2008-ish model) running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 with 4Gb of RAM and 750Gb of internal HD (the original 250Gb seriously cramped my style), and UserEventAgent is acting all weird.
Because of that old 250Gb HD, I was in the habit of storing files I didn't need at the time on an external hard drive, a LaCie 500Gb connected by FW800 (probably not relevant). And lately, whenever I plug it in, I can't eject it without forcing it to eject.
Using the "list open files" command and searching for that drive [ lsof | grep LaCie ] reveals that UserEvent drops an immediate hook in it for some reason. This connection is immediate, and short of force-quitting UserEventAgent in Activity Monitor at the exact moment I try to eject that drive, I can't disconnect it properly without forcing it or shutting down completely.
In fact, looking at UserEventAgent's open files and ports in Activity Monitor, something just plain doesn't look right:
/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent
/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/PlugIns/csparser.bundle/Contents/M acOS/csparser
/private/var/folders/td/hnt8krzc8xj63p001s61rg7r0000gn/C/mds/mdsDirectory.db
/usr/share/icu/icudt49l.dat
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/ACRRDaemon.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ACRRDaemon
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/heimdalodpac.bundle/Con tents/MacOS/heimdalodpac
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/LKDCLocate.bundle/Conte nts/MacOS/LKDCLocate
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/Reachability.bundle/Con tents/MacOS/Reachability
/System/Library/KerberosPlugins/KerberosFrameworkPlugins/SCKerberosConfig.bundle /Contents/MacOS/SCKerberosConfig
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AirPortUserAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AirPortU serAgent
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AppleHIDMouseAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AppleH IDMouseAgent
/private/var/db/mds/messages/se_SecurityMessages
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AssistantUEA.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AssistantUEA
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/AutoTimeZone.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AutoTimeZone
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/BTMMPortInUseAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BTMMPo rtInUseAgent
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/BluetoothUserAgent-Plugin.plugin/Contents/MacOS /BluetoothUserAgent-Plugin
/System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleHDAHALPlugIn.bund le/Contents/MacOS/AppleHDAHALPlugIn
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/BonjourEvents.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BonjourEven ts
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/CalendarMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/CalendarM onitor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/CaptiveUserAgent.plugin/Contents/MacOS/CaptiveU serAgent
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/DiskUnmountWatcher.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DiskUn mountWatcher
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/EAPOLMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/EAPOLMonitor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/GSSNotificationForwarder.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ GSSNotificationForwarder
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/LocationMenu.plugin/Contents/MacOS/LocationMenu
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/PrinterMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/PrinterMon itor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/SCMonitor.plugin/Contents/MacOS/SCMonitor
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/alfUIplugin.plugin/Contents/MacOS/alfUIplugin
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.UserNotification.plugi n/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.UserNotification
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.TimeMachine.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com .apple.TimeMachine
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.bonjour.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com.app le.bonjour
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.cfnotification.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ com.apple.cfnotification
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.dispatch.vfs.plugin/Contents/MacOS/co m.apple.dispatch.vfs
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.fsevents.matching.plugin/Contents/Mac OS/com.apple.fsevents.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.iokit.matching.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ com.apple.iokit.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.launchd.helper.plugin/Contents/MacOS/ com.apple.launchd.helper
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.locationd.events.plugin/Contents/MacO S/com.apple.locationd.events
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.notifyd.matching.plugin/Contents/MacO S/com.apple.notifyd.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.rcdevent.matching.plugin/Contents/Mac OS/com.apple.rcdevent.matching
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.time.plugin/Contents/MacOS/com.apple. time
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.universalaccess.events.plugin/Content s/MacOS/com.apple.universalaccess.events
/System/Library/UserEventPlugins/com.apple.usernotificationcenter.matching.plugi n/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.usernotificationcenter.matching
/System/Library/Extensions/IOHIDFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOHIDLib.plugin/Con tents/MacOS/IOHIDLib
/private/var/folders/td/hnt8krzc8xj63p001s61rg7r0000gn/C/com.apple.LaunchService s-036501.csstore
/usr/lib/dyld
/private/var/db/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64
/dev/null
/dev/null
/dev/null
count=1, state=0x2
/dev/io8log
/Users/<username>/Library/Assistant/sync_flag
->0xc1a78b298c30c655
count=0, state=0
count=0, state=0
/private/etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd
/private/etc
/private
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local
/usr
count=0, state=0
/private/var/db/PanicReporter
/private/var/db
/private/var
/private
count=0, state=0
/private/var/db/GPURestartReporter
/private/var/db
/private/var
/private
count=0, state=0
/private/etc
/private/etc
/private
count=0, state=0
/Users/<username>/Library/Services
/Users/<username>/Library
/Users/<username>
/Users
count=0, state=0
/Library
/Library
count=0, state=0
/Applications
/Applications/Utilities
/Applications
count=0, state=0
/Library/Caches
/Library/Caches
/Library
count=0, state=0
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent.launchd
/Library/Preferences
/Library
count=0, state=0
/Applications/Fun/Steam.app
/Applications/Fun
/Applications
/Volumes
/Volumes
The repetitions (I mean seriously, who needs three open connections to /dev/null?), and the multiple instances of "count=0, state=0", suggest that UserEventAgent is getting bad info from somewhere.
If I can track down what's making UserEventAgent imitate an overly amorous octopus, maybe I can straighten out this mess. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that this list has picked up funky smells and bad habits from all the earlier versions of OS X I've run.
Help? Please?

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software — potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions — they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in “normal” mode, not in safe mode. If you’re now running in safe mode, reboot as usual before continuing.
Below are instructions to enter some UNIX shell commands. The commands are harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of the procedure suggested here, search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects.
Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then either copy or drag it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Copy or drag — do not type — the line below into the Terminal window, then press return:
kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}'
Post the lines of output (if any) that appear below what you just entered (the text, please, not a screenshot.) You can omit the final line ending in “$”.
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix)|edu\.mit|org\.(amavis|apache|cups|isc|ntp|postfix|x)/{print $3}'
This time, you'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning.
Note: If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before taking this step. If that’s not possible, skip to the next step.
Step 3
launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|edu\.mit|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}'
Step 4
ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null
Important: If you formerly synchronized with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.
Step 5
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item' 2> /dev/null
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You can then quit Terminal.

WD My Book 1 TB External Hard drive firewire cable won't fit into Mac Pro

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I have a problem with a *300GB Venus DS3 Hard Disk* / USB 2.0 - Firewire 400 (not sure if 400).
I have a +Mac G4 (1GHz Power PC G4 / 1GB DDR SDRAM)+ running +Mac OS 10.3.9.+
I connect Venus hard disk through USB cable and no problem. But when I want to connect it via Firewire it doesn´t appear in the desktop.
If I go to *System Profile* it says that there is a device connected to the FireWire port but i can´t see it in the desktop and if a open *Disk Utility*, there is no other hard disk besides the internal, so I can´t mount the Venus DS3 Hard Drive.
I looked in the internet and found this page -> http://american-media.com/support/downloadDDDS2316CBK.html
I was about to download the *Firmware Update* but i read this:
AMS is not held responsible for any damage caused by misusage of this utility! Use at your own risk and be aware that your warranty might be void! DO NOT CHANGE
ANY SETTINGS WITHOUT CONSULTING TECHSUPPORT. Do not distribute or post these files on the internet!
I searched in Internet and found that many persons had issues connecting Hard Drives using Firewire port and read some tips (like unplugging all the usb firewire devices unless mouse and keyboard, disconnect AC cable, wait 15 minutes, ...) but couldn´t fix the problem.
I also wrote several emails to the manufacturer of Venus hard drives (American-Media) but so far no answer.
I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me how to connect the Venus DS3 to a Mac G4 (OS 10.3.9) via FireWire.
Thank you very much

I suspect the problem is in the size of the drive. You say the drive was formatted for Mac and Windows. How did you do that? With older Macs, there is a 128 gB limit on drive size.
Here is a link to a third party disk utility that claims it gets around the size limit:
http://www.SpeedTools2.com/
Another possibility is to connect the drive to a Windows machine and re-format it into 3 volumes, each less than 128 gB. The Mac should be able to see the partitions.
Sidebar comments:
• The way I read the information on the AMS web page that you cited, you do not need a driver. And that is consistent with my experience with firewire enclosures.
• Inside the AMS enclosure, the drive is a standard ATA/IDE drive. That you can use the drive with a USB connection is proof the drive itself is working.
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I have a 400 Mhz Blue & White G3 running OS X 10.4.8 or Classic 9.2. I also have an IOMEGA 400 Gig Hard Drive capable of connecting with FireWire I & II and USB and an IOMEGA 120 Gig Hard Drive capable of connecting via FireWire I. Of course, the G3 only has FireWire I capability. I also have a PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.4.8.
The 400 Gig HD boots under all three methods of connection.
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One other thing you mentioned it is seen in Classic but not on OS X. I am not sure if you are aware of this but your drive comes FAT32 formatted. Below is a link to tell you a little more about as to why mac os x can't support a FAT32 partition over 128GB.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107483
Here are a few steps to resolving your issue.
STEP ONE - Confirm that the drive is being seen by the system
Click the Apple icon and select About This Mac.
Click More Info.
Select the Drives and Volumes tab.
If the Iomega Hard Disk drive is not listed under the USB/FireWire arrow, proceed to STEP THREE.
If the Iomega Hard Disk drive is listed, continue with the next step.
STEP TWO - Format the Iomega Hard Disk drive to Mac HFS format
The Iomega Hard Disk drive is factory formatted to FAT32 for maximum compatibility. If you have not reformatted the disk or the disk is formatted to FAT32:
The disk may mount very slowly in OS X if the disk is FAT32 formatted.
Mac OS X will not mount any DOS (FAT32) partition larger than 128GB. For more information, please check the Apple® Web site at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107483
Warning: Erasing your Iomega Hard Disk drive will erase all of the information stored on the disk. If possible, back up your data before erasing the hard drive. Mac formatted disks are not cross compatible with other operating systems, such as Windows®, without the purchase of additional third-party software.
Double-click the Mac hard drive icon.
Double-click the Applications folder.
Double-click the Utilities folder.
Double-click the Disk Utilities icon.
Highlight the Iomega drive in the left window.
Click the Erase tab.
Select Mac OS Extended.
Click the Erase button and then click Erase from the confirmation window.
If the Iomega Hard Disk drive now mounts, you are ready to use the drive.
If the Iomega Hard Disk drive does not mount, continue with the next step.
STEP THREE - Are the Mac OS X drivers detecting the drive properly?
The Iomega Hard Drive may not mount if you are using Mac OS X versions under 10.1.3. If you are not using Mac OS X 10.1.3 or higher, please visit the Apple® Web site at http://www.apple.com/macosx/ for information on getting the latest version.

Slow start when record to external hard drive

I'm new to this so bare with me. When set up to record multitrack to my external drive, (via firewire 400 connection) it takes several minutes to start on my macbook. Seems to start ok with internal hard drive. Also experiencing disc too slow error about 40 minutes into recording. Any help would be appreciated.

Open up Disk utility. It's in your Utilities Folder.
Select your external disk in the left column.
In the lower left corner, you should see this, which will tell you how it's formatted:
!http://web.me.com/johnalcock/filechute/DiskFormat.png!
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Pictures and media files on external hard drive (FW 800)?

I am currently using an iMac 27" (late 2009 model: 8 GB RAM, 1TB HD, i7 with 2.8 GHz), mostly for semi-professional picture editing in PhotoShop CS6. A few months ago, I received an e-mail from Apple telling me to replace the internal Seagate HD. As the iMac is getting a bit slow (and the new ones are a bit expensive), I am considering replacing 1) the internal HD with a 512 GB SSD and 2) the 4x2 GB RAM modules with 4x4 GB RAM modules.
Now, the 512 GB SSD is a bit small for the picture library (plus iTunes library, etc.), hence I am considering buying an external hard disk (LaCie 2big Quadra 6 TB, RAID 1 and connected via Firewire 800; my old iMac does not feature USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt). Is such a configuration of permanently placing my picture files on an external HD (not just for backup purposes, but for every day use) a reasonable solution, i.e. is it fast enough?
Any views if this is a good or bad idea?

FW800 should be plenty fast for archiving. I used that with my late 2007 imac, had my Aperture, iTunes and movie library on a FW800 drive that was daisy chained with 2 other EHD's, it all worked just fine.

External hard drive and itunes problem

I've had real trouble with my external logitec USB 2 (that's the japanese logitec not LOGITECH) hard drive.
I had my itunes music folder on it, and when i connected my shuffle and tried to transfer songs, itunes would usually freeze. so i transferred all the songs onto my ibook instead and it works fine as long as the external drive isn't connected, BUT get this: if i have the harddrive connected to my ibook, itunes will freeze when i try to transfer tunes from my ibook to my shuffle. i don't get it. unless my ibook is confusing the two drives? sorry, i don't know much about this. i've tried reinstalling itunes and i have the latest version. i've also reformatted my shuffle. but no luck.
any ideas???
thanks!
David.

Nick,
I am by no means an iTunes guru and I haven't come across this problem myself.....but this is what I would try.
Select all of the songs in your iTunes library and delete them from the library only.
File > Add Folder to Library > browse to your folder on your external and hit OK
I have to do this every time I add new songs to my MP3 folder, as iTunes can't figure out that most of these songs already exist in the library. It then decides to make multiple instances of the same song and therefore showing that I have tons of duplicate songs.
If you need this for transferring your music to your iPod, then by all means more power to you.
If you are doing this to play your music only, then I strongly suggest looking into purchasing a different music player. I personally use Musicmatch Jukebox for several reasons;
1. It allows the user to sort thier music library in MANY different ways using various criteria (not just one option to sort music).
2. It allows for many more fields for your ID3 meta tags, so you can have featured artists shown on compilation CD's.
3. It's been around for a LONG time and incorporates the feedback they receive from the customers.
4. You now have the option to buy it with all future updates in one price.
Hope that this helps you out....
Cheers
Windows XP

If you use external hard drives and have problems, read this

My setup is :
Power Book G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.10, with the latest version of iTunes.
Since I have a huge amount of music, that I have aquired during the past 25 years, I was very excited, when finally an iPod with a decent HD was released.
As you know, 70,000+ songs will not fit on your internal HD in a Power Book, so I had to move my music collection to two external Firewire HDs.
Synching a subset of my 'overall collection' to my good old G3 iPod has never been an issue.... that was, until I hooked up my 160 GB iPod classic for the first time...
I ran into all kinds of issues, especially, when synching a huge amount of songs at one time (i.e. 26,000 songs and more).
The data on the iPod would be incomplete or corrupted, once the Synch was completed.
The iTunes helpdesk was clueless and had me restore my iPod, even after I have told them several times, that I have done this before (many times) and that this definitely was not the issue.
As mentioned in other threads, iTunes is unbearably slow, once a 160 GB iPod classic is connected. And as it turns out, the problem occures when transferring songs through this VERY slow application, from the firewire drives, to the iPod which is connected through USB. After a certain amount of songs, iTunes starts 'stuttering' (if I have to look at the 'spinning wheel' for another 15 minutes, I will lose my mind) and somehow the data transfer between iTunes and the iPod gets corrupted.
Hence, once the Sync is finally completed (we are talking about 5 hours), the iPod is no longer able to play any songs, and all that can be done, is resetting the iPod again and start from scratch.
How Apple missed this, during their beta testing, is beyond me. They probably only used the latest intel processors on their fastest machines.
So if you run into similar issues, and if you have a similar setup, you might want to start synching small batches of songs.
I hope, a fine tuned iTunes version will be released soon.

When I first experienced this problem it appeared as though everything was transferring correctly. The progress dialogue showed that I was transferring a few thousand songs and then stop. When I looked at the ipod it showed only a few hundred (if that) had been transferred. This was about a year ago that I had this problem.
I think what is happening is that the software is setting up the transfer but not actually transferring the files until the very end. Seems weird I know, but the problem was consistent. It only happened when I had the setting to transfer the album art selected.
Apple was no help. But when I plugged the sync cable directly into the computer everything worked fine. I would think that a good powered hub would work as well as being plugged directly into the computer, or at least using the outlets on the back of my Apple display, but that is not the case.
I don't know what to suggest about USB 1. Before USB 2, Apple used firewire with all of their ipods because USB was sooo slow. When USB caught up (or close enough) they changed the interface.
You might try unselecting the option to sync album art. I know that the new interface looks pretty ugly without it, but at least you would have your music.

Recording to external hard drives - Firewire 800 problems

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