S.M.A.R.T. FW400 bridge boards vs FW800 bridge boards

I am building a 4 bay case with ATA drives for storage. It will be connected via with FW400 or FW800. I see the FW400 bridgeboards are available as S.M.A.R.T., just like the drive in my computr. I do not see any FW800 S.M.A.R.T. available. How inportant are drives to have S.M.A.R.T.?

SMART is not critical to anything. It's merely a technology that enables a hard drive to detect possible failure of the drive before the drive actually fails. However, it's up to the manufacturer of the drive to provide the information used by SMART. Some manufacturers provide more information on the drive than others. Drives with SMART technology can still fail without warning, and SMART is statistically no more than about 50 percent reliable at detecting impending failure.
Do a Google search on it and you'll find hundreds of articles about SMART, what it is, how it works, etc.

Similar Messages

FW400 audio interface into FW800 connection

I am planning to upgrade to Logic Studio 2. Not being ready to but a new machine now, I will have to install it on my MBP (intel) until I can upgrade my tower (G5).
Problem is that my audio interface is a Firewire 400 connection and Apple dropped that on the MBP! I only have FW800 ports.
Is there a way to convert the FW400 connection to a FW 800 port? Or am I going to need a new audio interface?
Thanks!

or this:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fw_adapter.html

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

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.

FW400 Clashing with FW800?!

I have a Macbook Pro 2.16 running 10.5.2, and have my M-Audio ProjectMix I/O connected to the FW400 port. I also have an external Lacie 250GB Firewire HD connected to the FW800 port, with my iPod (Photo 60GB) daisy-chained to the Lacie HD via it's FW400 port.
I cannot run all of these at the same time without my computer giving the "you need to restart your computer" message. Everything runs VERY slow while the PrjectMix is plugged in at the same time as the Lacie. As soon as I plug in the iPod, I get the "restart' screen. So I can either have the HD and iPod running, or the ProjectMix.
VERY BIG pain in the backside!!!!!
Is it worth mentioning that the ProjectMix does not have 10.5 drivers yet?
Why is this happening, and how can I fix it?

The FW800 and 400 share the same bus. Because of this, conect your firewire 800 device first so you can get the maximum speed. Now, you are connecting your FW400 ipod to your FW800 hard drive so that means the FW800 is now going a max of FW400. Do you need your iPod connected? Once your hard drive is connected, then connect your M-Audio device and get the iPod out of the daisy chai if you can.

Canon mini Disk camera doesn't work if external drive connected

A long story.      Anyway, I have a MacPro Intel Dual Core 266 Ghz with 5 Gbs RAM, 4 internal hard drives HD1~HD4 (HD1 OSX 250 and three 500Gb) and two external HD5 (two partitions~HD5 & Time Machine Backups) and HD6 (1 Tb each).
I've been using a Canon mini DV video camera FV-M10 (Firewire 400) for live video (Skype/iChat) and also for importing video into Final Cut Express, After Effects or iMovie up until a few days ago. Both "live" video and from the recorded mini cassette tape. Then all of a sudden not one of the software recognized my camera anymore. I tried both Firewire 800/400 and USB2 connections using a few different cables. In Skype...(sometimes) it automatically shows the name FV-M10 in the camera slot, but the screen is black. No, I checked if I left the cover on. I checked my Sony WX-5 digital camera and see if that is recognized. Yes, both pics and AVCHD videos are seen using the USB connection.
The problem started like this.
I was downloading a file. Had to work for an hour and when I came back upstairs. I noticed that the screen was frozen.   So, I shut the Mac down. And when I started it again, well nothing happened except for a grey screen. A half~sized cursor was stuck up in the top left. But, my mouse also had a cursor which was movable.
It wouldn't even recognize the OSX Install Disk holding down "C" or "Option". Only starting with "Shift" held down, "Safe Boot" could I use the basics like Mail, Safari, Firefox.   NO sound and no video. Tried a few times as well as cleaned my OSX HD1 hard drive and re-installed from "Safe Boot" mode".   So, I had it sent into Apple Tokyo for repairs.   Apple put in a new board.     Great!      I came it back in two days.   I cleaned the OSX hard drive and re-installed Mac OSX with the up-dates as well and got some of my main backed up stuff Mail, bookmarks, address book etc.   It started fine.     But, when I went to use Skype, iChat, iMovie or Final Cut Express they still couldn't recognize my camera. I had been using the Canon FV M10 camera for a few years with both external hard drives on. There were never any problems until just before I sent it into the shop.
There was only one way to use my camera. Un-Plug the external HD6. Then the camera functions fine. but remember I had been using this camera with both HD's for around two years without any problems.
Notes on symptoms: and what actions I took.
Front connections: FW400 Canon camera. FW800 (Tried connecting HD6)
Rear Connections: USB2 1) MidiMan 2 x2   2) mouse 3) Canon Printer
                               FW400 HD5 FW800 (tried HD6)
With HD6 Connected.
iMovie 11 9.02 : Start iMovie O.K. No camera on.   Turned camera "on" then "No Camera Connected" notice came up.   (did this a few times)   Turned camera off.   Quit iMovie.
2nd start: Camera On.   iMovie freezes.   Spinning Colored beach ball.   I then Force Quit Option-Apple-ESC
iMovie shows (not responding) When I turn off the camera. (not responding) disappears and iMovie is working again. But, "No Camera Connected" shows again. Quit!
Un-Plugged (Ejected) HD6.
When I un-plugged HD6,    (tried both the front and rear connections).   iMovie still on.
"No Camera Connected" I Quit iMovie.
Re-start iMovie: Camera on… Live video and record miniDV tape can both be seen.
Skype: Both live video and mini DV tape recording even plays back over Skype screen.
iChat (same as Skype) O.K.
Since Apple replaced the board 661-3932 Card Video, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT which cost just about $X00.00 (¥XX,000).   I assume that they don't also check all the connections etc. I mean from the connector to the video board.
The call to Apple Tokyo today.
Just talked to Apple (Mac) Tokyo about my computer problem. Seems like they're trying to squeeze their way of more repairs by saying I have a hard drive configuration problem.   But it doesn't seem like that!   I worked with it 2~3 hours today...and here is the basic problem.
I've used the Canon FV M10 mini DV camera with Skype, iChat, iMovie and FCEx for few years (HD6) is over a year old-the most recent add on) with no problem.    With both external 1Tb hard drives. And Apple said that it's a 3-party problem. (different makers etc.) But, it's NOT!     Yes, they put in a new board.   But, I'd say the problem is from the connection (where I plug the cable into the Mac) to the board.
When I connect HD6 (1Tb ext hard drive).   FW 800 (either back or front connection) the video camera doesn't work in Skype, iChat, iMovie, or Final Cut Express.     If I eject and Un-Plug HD6 all of them work fine. The camera "live" or the camera playing back the mini DV tape video.
Wouldn't this be a problem between the connections (front & back) to the new video board? Or does anyone have an answer.   Apple seems to have said, "We can't help you".   Please someone help! thanks

+My mini isn't responding to startup commands like "C" or "D" from the keyboard.+
You'll need a wired usb keyboard for these commands to work -- and the Apple Aluminum keyboard won't work either.
But just about any PC usb keyboard will work. Alt maps to Option and Win-key to CMD.

Topic revisited: 1.42 processor

Hello,
I have a Power Mac G4 Dual 1.25 with 2MB L3 cache per processor(4 MB total). I had to repost this again because for some reason Mac-pro.com lied to me and told me that a 1.42 processor card won't work in the dual 1.25 machine. Although, I now know that the copper heatsink will fit over the 1.25 dual processor card, I also would like to know if the dual 1.42 processor can be used instead of the dual 1.25 in the FW400 logic board? My machine is a 2003(very last before G5) MDD 2003 dual 1.25 w/2MB L3 + dual boots into OS 9.2.2(not that I need it).
I would like a straight, simple answer if I can swap out the dual 1.25 processor and insert the dual 1.42 processor. Oh, and I might as well ask about the copper heatsink again, as mac-pro.com questioned me and told me that neither the heatsink nor processor will work in a dual 1.25 FW400 logic board.
What is known is of course the bus speed is the same: 167MHZ bus, so to anyone out there: WILL ALL OF THIS WORK in a 2003 MDD dual 1.25 FW400?
Because when mac-pro.com once tried it, they told me sob stories that it would not work and what I would get would be a blank screen or if it did work it would not register correctly on system profiler.
Can someone please tell me once and for all that a dual 1.42 + its copper heatsink will work to replace my dual 1.25 processor in a FW400 2003 MDD logic board?
Thank you and Happy holidays!

I see no reason not to swap out a dual 1.25 for a 1.42. Wish I could find one myself to upgrade another MDD I have. I personally didn't have any issues when I installed a dual card, that was taken from a FW800 machine, on to a FW400 motherboard, and the FireWire speed shouldn't be an issue for the CPU in this case. As far as the copper heatsink is concerned, it will fit and is different only in that it is more efficient.
I have heard of several folk who have gotten hold of a copper HS just to run their machine cooler. Just test to make sure the HS is making good even contact with the CPU and use a good quality thermal compound to ensure heat transfer.

No longer outputs video down FW, when using FW external HD?

In a recent upgrade (I think it was actually when I went to OSX 10.4.6 - although it might have been QT 7.1.1 or even FCS 5.1.1) I have noticed that:
- when using an external FW800 HD drive for captured footage, and trying to play out DV to my ADVC-100 (on a FW400 bus)
- my dual G4 no longer plays DV out of FW for more than a few seconds. The FW video output just stops.
The fact that it plays for a few seconds obviously shows it is all connected up and working OK.
If I take the HD out of the external FW case and put it inside the G4 (on an IDE bus) - all is fine - DV plays out of FW indefinitely. It also used to work previously (before a software upgrade) - playing DV down FW400 while using external FW800 drives for captured footage.
Familiar to anybody else? Any solutions?
I am (I believe) all up to date with updates, including ProAppSupport.

Answering my own question here:
Solution was to use an additional FW PCI card (Sonnet Allegro) to give me a second FW bus in my Dual G4 1.42GHz FW800.
I (wrongly) assumed that with a G4 FW800, with two FW400 ports and one FW800 port, that the FW800 and FW400 busses were separate. Not so, as someone pointed out, saying there are NO Macs with more than one FW bus built in.
So, external HD on internal FW800 bus, and ADVC-100 on PCI FW400 card - and all is OK now.
Can I give myself "solved" points?

How to transfer files from an iMac without upgraded Migration Assistant to a new iMac that doesn't have a firewire port?

Hello.
I just purchased a new iMac. He's awesome. However, he didn't come with a Firewire port. (Bummer, because I have one from the last time (2007) I had to transfer stuff from my iBook...)
When I turned him on, he wanted to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from the older iMac; she doesn't have the most updated Migration Assistant, though. (She works just fine, but she only has Snow Leopard.)
Okay, so what I'm wondering is if I just have to use a huge external hardrive to move everything? If I do that, will my programs (Microsoft Office) move? I fear they won't move/transfer that way. Ugh.
PLEASE HELP.
Ideas? Advice?
Thank you in advance!

Firewire 800 (what the new iMac has) is 9 pin. FireWire 400 is 6 pin (what your old iMac has). Hopefully you didn't damage your new iMac by trying to insert a FW400 cable into its FW800 connector. The numbers are important in the case of the ports. They don't interchange!!! Get the proper cable or risk damaging your new iMac.

Importing video from disk

I'm new to FCE, to Mac, and to asking for help.
My embarassingly quaint question is: Why can't I import material from my Sony disk? Using my Samsung DVD recorder, I've transferred my video onto a regular 4.5" disk; but FCE tells me it's in the wrong format and won't accept it.
I have to use this dodgey system because I don't have the appropriate cable to feed directly from my cheapie Canon ZR 900 into my Mac. (I'm desperately trying to find one).
Please put me out of my misery.
And thank you.

The ZR900 is a vanilla miniDV camcorder.
All you need is an inexpensive 4-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable (or a 4-pin to 9-pin FireWire cable if you have a newer iMac that only has a FW800 port).
The 4-pin plug goes into your ZR900's FireWire port; the 6-pin or 9-pin plug goes into your iMac depending on whether it has FW400 (6-pin) or FW800 (9-pin) ports. Then you can capture your video directly into FCE.
These are available lots of places ... Amazon, buy.com, newgg.com, MacMall, monoprice.com ... your local RadioShack and often big box or office supply stores should also have these cables.

Mac Mini 2009 - Can't daisy chain two FW800 drives

I have two FW800 enclosures with 3.5-inch drives and external power.
Each one mounts individually when connected to the Mini FW800 port but when I daisy-chain them the second one in the chain doesn't mount and is not seen by disk utility.
Those enclosures use an Oxford UF934DSB chipset.
What's ironic that I had a FW400 enclosure daisy chained to one FW800 enclosure until this afternoon and that daisy-chain worked fine.
Somewhere on the net there was an article that the daisy-chaining had to be done in a certain sequence, ie Mac FW to top FW port on first external, then from bottom of first FW enclosure to top of second and so forth.
I always though the FW ports were just wired in parallel.
Well, this is interesting - since these new FW800 enclosures also have one FW400 port as well, I just connected the second one using the FW400 ports and now they both mount.
But now the whole chain only runs at FW400 speeds.
Anyone else come across this problem or better yet, what is the solution to get both daisy-chained FW800 drives to mount.
The enclosures are Rosewell, the drive in each a 1.5 TB WD green.

I don't think it has anything to do with the power supply.
The two enclosures are identical and react (work or not) exactly the same when I interchange them or the FW cable.
They also work flawlessly if I connect the second one using FW400 instead of FW800. Would just trying to get the enclosure to mount with FW800 draw more current than when mounting with FW400 to put the power brick over the edge? I doubt it.
A few other things I'm going to try - I do this when I have a few extra minutes since I can't afford to spend my time on this continuously.
1. See if there is a F'W update for the enclosure and/or the Oxford chip.
2. Talk to the Oxford and enclosure support people
3. Update to 10.6.4, I'm on 10.6.2 right now
4. Do a bit more digging on the net to see how others got the FW800 daisy-chaining working.
The two enclosures react the same when I try each one separately and also when I switch them around. Whatever the problem is, it affects both equally so it's not some defect on one of them.
With the rest of the testing I have done, I'm now pretty sure it's a Mac software problem.
Although I would have thought someone else would have this problem as well but I can't even find any discussion on daisy-chaining with this chipset when running OS 10.6.
There is a 15-digit number in disk utility called connection ID.
I assume that is the Firewire ID number that some threads I read refer to.
That ID is the same for the two FW800 ports and the FW400 port on each enclosure but it's different for the two enclosures, so some conflict there is definitely not the issue.
So far I couldn't find what the latest issue of firmware is for the Oxford chip set, but I copied all the information that comes up with the firewire hardware listing so when I find the information I can check it against the firmware issue on my two units.
Now, another interesting tidbit - some people say they had to power up the enclosure a few times occasionally to get a single drive to mount.
I never had that problem, a single FW800 drive always mounted right away, but I decided to try that with the daisy-chained drive.
So I turned the power switch on that second drive off and then on again...and lo and behold - doesn't it mount now........
But that is not the interesting tidbit........the tidbit is when I check back in the Mini Firewire hardware listing.
Whereas before it showed all the expected detail with either drive when connected individually via FW800, now with both FW800 drives connected I get this:
*FireWire Bus:*
*Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices.*
*Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec*
....and oooops - both FW800 drives just disconnected by themselves.
Sure seems to point to a Mac software issue.
And if you google for "Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices." you get pages of hits - many on Leopard but also a fair share on SL.
I updated the software to 10.6.4 - still the same problem.
Daisy-chain with FW400 is fine, with FW800 the second drive in the chain - doesn't matter which one it is, won't mount.

Connecting Canon HV30 to New Macbook pro with firewire 800

I just received new Macbook pro 2.8 that only has 9 pin firewire 800 connectivity. My previous IMac accepted my Canon HV30 HD video through 4-6 pin firewire 400 with ease, the new laptop will receive the video through 4-9 pin cable but the video color is severely distorted and unusable. Is there a problem with firewire 400 to 800 transfer compatibility?

Yeah, FW400 is compatible with FW800. Only need to find the conversion cable with the correct connectors.Try getting that first and connecting the two, to see if the Mac recognizes it and enables capture. Else visit the camera maker's site to check if they are providing Mac-specific software.

All the fire wire ports quit working.

Hello to all. As you see I am a newbie on here. Last night I was transferring files from my exteranl FW400 to my other FW800 which are daisy chained together. Ive done this hundreds of times. Last night as I made sure at least one of the files transferred over, I went to bed like I always do. I woke up this morning and had noticed it didnt finish several files because it was no longer seen on my mac.
This has happened before, so I shut down and restarted. Nothing, Then I noticed my other FW800 hard drives where not showing up. I shut down for 10mins, started up and nothing. Went over to check on my firewire bus and it said it can not locate the bus at this time. Nothing is smelling burnt, I looked inside and it looks normal. Please help. This is the first Major issue ive eeeeeeeever had with my macpro.

Here's more......Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that didn't work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try.
If that still didn't get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
A bad internal PRAM battery can also cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Also, here is Apple doc.#88338 on getting FireWire to work.
Here's another Fw Faq.
DALE

External harddrive suggestion to boost my computer...

Hello,
I'm stuck at a standstill with my project because I'm all out of memory. I'm dealing with 32 hours of footage. I tend to put most of it on the computer before trimming it down, just to see what I'm working with. I still have roughly 20 hours of footage to sort through.
A friend recommended I get a Terrabyte external drive. Yes? No? Models/brand suggestions? I'm working on a new MacPro.

Unless you need RAID for speed (or backup: mirrors, Raid 5, etc.), I'd go with internal; you can get up to 1.5TB drives from Seagate at MacSales.com for about $160. I've used them (at least the ATA bare drives) and they work fine for me.
For external (not raid: for that, Caldigit is the right answer), I usually get Mercury Elite Pro drives with Quad interfaces (future proof: USB 2, FW800, FW400, eSata) and use FW800. Again, 1.5TB for $260.
I've bee using internal Sata drives on my G5 Quad and external FW800 for ProRes 422 (1440x1080p30) and up to three streams of multi-clip without incident; but that's pushing it and I suspect that for real ProRes multistream use, a Raid of some sort is needed (see CalDigit).
Eddie O

HT1665 Is their an adapter to connect a i phone 3 to a lightning connector

we have recently purchased a Sony radio/alarm with docking station. The docking station is for the i phone 4/5 series . Is there an adapter to connect from this to my i phone 3 ?

I've seen USB2<->FW cables/adapters advertised out of China, but there is no way for them to work, different voltages, amps, & protocols.
Some few FW400 drives here, but FW800 will work with a 6 pin<->9 pin cable...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/1394B96036/

S.M.A.R.T. FW400 bridge boards vs FW800 bridge boards

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