Two firewire 400 external housings2 duo

which ide ata harddrives should i put in it and can i use them as a software Radi? which RAID should I use for video editing?
nito

FW400 doesn't offer bandwidth or anything to justify using RAID.
Most of the drives today can even saturate FW800.
You have 4 internal drive bays; two more ODD ports on the motherboard you can use (internal or external).
Then if you need more, add PCIe controller(s).
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Disk drives: from boot drive to 1TB to affordable fast 640GB - and of course 10K Raptor.
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Similar Messages

Macally firewire 400 external HD - Duplicated connection id.

I recently bought 3 firewire 400 external HD. My G5 has 2 400 firewire ports. There is not problem connecting disk 1 and 2, in a daisy chain to any of the 2 ports or each disk independently to each port. Same thing is true for disks 2 and 3. But when I tried to have the three disks simultaneously the system automatically disconnect disk 1 and 3. In summary disk 1 and 3 can not be connected simultaneously.
Using disk utility I realized that there is something called connection ID for each disk and disk 1 and 3 both have the same id. Could it be the reason for the problem? Is it assigned by the operating system or fixed in the external HD? if so, how do I change it?

Hi-
As DaddyPaycheck has advised, daisy chaining isn't really a good idea. Reports of drive problems, lost/corrupt data, due to daisy chaining, aren't hard to find, Mac or PC......
There are noted instances of external drive makers housings that will not support over two drives (total) in the chain.
Using disk utility I realized that there is something called connection ID for each disk and disk 1 and 3 both have the same id.
The report of bus location of the external housing controller to the I/O controller of the system is how the BSD (operating system) assigns a name (actually an address). Each device should have a unique ID. This is not something that one can manually assign; you cannot change it.
Could it be the reason for the problem?
The problem you are experiencing could indicate a conflict between the drive housing controllers and/or firmware version. It could be a malfunction of a controller, as well.
I would follow the excellent advice received, and get a FW card or hub before some important data is trashed.
Also, because there is some question in my mind as to the health of the external housing(s), I would definitely inquire with Macally Support regarding the matter.

Firewire 400 External Drive Not Recognized in Yosemite

I have a Fantom external hard drive that is plugged into my Mac mini. The external hard drive uses the old firewire 400 standard. The mac mini only has a firewire 800 standard port. I have an adaptor to bridge the two, and this worked fine until I updated to Yosemite. Now the drive isn't recognized. Can anyone offer suggestions on what to do to get this drive to work on this computer?? None of the other macs in my house even have a firewire 800 port anymore.

Disk Utility – Force Mount Disk
See the mount section.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal

FireWire 400 External Hard Drive problem with Macbook

I have been using the firewire 400 connection of my macbook (2 ghz Intel Core Duo, OS X 10.4.11) with a LaCie 320 GB 7200 RPM with no trouble for over a year now. Suddenly, the drive is really slow to mount. Sometimes only one of the 2 partitions mount (which never happened before). And it takes considerably longer to access files, let alone load one up.
I tried the external drive with the same fw 400 connection on a G4 running 10.3.9 and a PC running XP and both mounted fine (with, as expected, only the windows compatible partition loading in the latter case). Data was quickly accessed and loaded on both machines.
So, thinking it was a problem with my macbook's fw port, I tried another fw external drive, which mounted very quickly and was quick to access and load data.
What is going on?

Hi George,
Have you had a look in the system.log file in the Console application? It sometimes a good start to check to see if its reporting any errors when you plug the drive in. Note the exact time that you plug in the drive. This will make it easier to find the part of the log you should be looking at.
Another thing you can do is run a disk utility such as Disk Warrior on the drive and optimize the directory. Directory problems can also cause drives to mount slowly. On the other hand it doesn't really make sense that the drive will mount quicker on other machines. Hope this helps.

MBP firewire 400, external HD issues...

Hi all.
My MacBook Pro has given me nothing but trouble since I bought it this summer. The firewire ports have gone dead twice -- AND I have had four external hard drives die on me (and I've always ejected them before unplugging/powering down).
Often drives that will mount on other computers will not mount on this computer. And just now, I had one drive that I managed to mount through the fw800 port with a firewire 400/800 cable -- but my computer froze up during a restart -- the fan started whirring like it was going to shake the computer apart. I forced the computer to restart (again) and now my external HD's firewire ports are dead (to two different computers I tried). Fortunately it also has a USB2 port.
The Apple store has attempted to fix my computer on a few different occasions -- and with only limited success. That is, they got my firewire port to work for a couple of weeks.
Anyone else having issues like this? I am convinced there is something electrical going on in this particular computer that is frying ports both in the computer and in external HDs, but am having trouble convincing Apple of this.
Suggestions?
Thanks,
Todd

hmm ya thats not right, i would go back or call apple and try to get it fixed/replaced.
something has to have a short or something wrong with it. i think i remember someone saying that their SMC has to get swapped when they had the same or a similar issue but i cant say for sure
-matt
Message was edited by: mattathayde

USB Hi-Speed vs FireWire 400 external drive write speed comparison

Since there were a host of external hard drive questions, I thought I'd just try out my own speed test while I'm watching TV in the background.
The drives I used were a bus-powered 250 GB LaCie Little Disk USB Hi-Speed + FireWire 400, and an adapter-powered 320 GB Western Digital MyBook Home USB Hi-Speed + FireWire 400 + eSATA. I judged the speed by running Activity Monitor and checking for Disk Activity's Data written/sec. There didn't appear to be much else happening, so I thought that the average rate was an accurate indicator. I plugged them directly into my MacBook's ports (no hubs or daisy-chaining).
_LaCie Little Disk (using the USB power-sharing cable made no difference - I tried both):_
USB: 23-25 MB/sec.
FW400: 32-33 MB/sec
_Western Digital MyBook Home (7200 RPM):_
USB: steady 27 MB/sec
FW400: 32-33 MB/sec
So definitely FireWire won out, although I wasn't getting the same speeds as advertised. WD doesn't specify anything other than the interface's raw speed, and of course those are never achieved for bulk transfers due to negotiations, overhead, etc. LaCie advertises up to 41 MB/sec for FW400 and up to 34 MB/sec for USB.
I found it a little bit strange that the LaCie drive was a bit slower with USB than the WD drive, but that could have to do with the particular chipset used.
I was going to post the product page of the two drives I used, but I had one thread deleted because I posted a product webpage link without using it to answer a direct question.

Oso Grande wrote:
I love Firewire but what has really pushed it out of the home/prosumer market is the TON of cheap USB 2.0 drives available.
I just pulled out my WD Passport Essential 160 GB drive with the original FAT32 format. I'm getting about 15-19 MB/sec although that was on my second try. The first try was only 12-14 MB/sec. Strange. I thought it would have been faster. I'm wondering if FAT32 makes a difference. Reads were at about 32-35 MB/sec, although there was a huge spike at the start before settling down to about 33 MB/sec.
I forgot to mention that both drives in my first test were HFS+ formatted. The LaCie drive used Apple Partition Mapping as a backup for two PowerPC Mac backup partition and an additional swap space. The WD MyBook Home used GUID Partition Mapping. Let me give reads a try.

Firewire 400 external vs internal hard drive - which is better?

I’m thinking of buying a handy little Mac Mini (circa 2008) from a friend to replace my ageing, workhorse Powermac (sniff).
The only problem is, it comes with an absolutely measly 60GB HDD. I want to replace this and boot from a new drive, but am stuck between getting a new internal drive (very hard to install, but obviously I don’t have a warranty to worry about) or an external fire-wire 400 drive (very expensive in relation).
Which will run quicker or better? Internal or Fire-wire 400? (I’m a typical Mac user – lots of internet, quite a lot of iPhoto, a bit of iMovie here and a bit of Dreamweaver there)
Also, I really want to use an Iomega one that matches the mini (I’m buying a mini to save space and reduce clutter in the first place..) – has anyone used this as their bootable drive with success??

A 7200 RPM internal will be the fastest. But Firewire-400 will be pretty good, too, especially if it is a 3.5-inch model.
Assuming the current internal has no problems, you could reformat it and make it the boot drive, but keep all your data on a firewire external.
Generally drives start noticeably slowing down once more than 50% full; so if you can keep the internal (boot) drive under 50%, it might surprise you with how fast it could be.

Best (Reliable for the Price) Firewire 400 External Hard Drive for iMac G5?

Howdy,
I have an iMac G5 2.0 GHz (non iSight) running OS 10.4.4. I am looking for an external hard drive with around 250 GB in capacity with a Firewire 400 connection.
I am looking at the Lacie FA Porsche 250 GB, Lacie d2 250 GB and the Maxtor One Touch II 300 GB.
I have read reviews and it is a mixed bag; FA Porsche gets hot and all three don't mount at times.
Nevertheless, anyone have any first hand experience that can give recommendations (positive or negative)?
Anyone with an iMac G5 have success with a different external hard drive than mentioned here?
Anyone have any intel on the new Maxtor OneTouch III?
Cheers,
Chuck

I have heard mixed things about all those drives, but I suppose that will be the case with anything. Someone always gets a good one while others gets a bad one - LOL!
I have used drives from OWC for my Mac and PC for a while now and never had a mounting issue with them under either platform. I never have had to update firmware or drivers either when I updated the OS. Nice drives and not bad prices either.
You can save a little money by buying their enclosures and adding your own ATA drive to it. There are some great deals out there on bare drives from lots of places, and these kits are very easy to assemble.

Firewire 400 external device on an MacBoook Pro Firewire 800

I have an external Hard drive a generic 120GB hard drive with a standard Firewire 400 port. I used it as an HFS drive with periodic backups to and from my old Powerbook G4 10.4 before the logic board died. Drive worked 1 month prior to the Powerbook's death.
I purchased a new Macbook i5 10.6.4, a much needed upgrade. Since it has a Firewire 800 port I purchased a 400 to 800 adapter from an online retailer. Once I plugged in the new firewire addapter the drive showed up as expected as a /Volume/Backup112.ZF. However the beach-ball of death showed and I could not read the drive. Terminal I could cd to the volume, but not list. In Terminal Testdisk application (Mentioned later) was able to list disk information as well as diskutil. The firewire would not unmount cleanly. Pulling out the connector only gave a message that drive was not unmounted cleanly and remained mounted... sudo diskutil unmount /Volume/Backup112.ZF did not work. Kill and restart of Finder only crashed the computer. Computer works great and after a hard reboot.
Multiple tries to get a error log got me nowhere. I could post disk information, but that would only show that the drive has read but not write permissions.. I did find multiple postings about using a 10.5 OFirewireSerialBusProtocolTransport.kext. I do not have a 10.5 disk to get the file off to download. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2136580
There seems to be an indication that Apple knows about the problem? Is there a developers forum where I could read what they are saying on the fix? I have an apple One Account, would it help to get in touch with the advanced staff? I have not seen any firewire problems like this in Unix. Are there any Unix people out there well versed in Firewire? Otherwise, Looks like I will be doing more research...
FYI:
NTFS read/write without software install. This works perfectly in 10.5-10.6 without any issues for my Windows to Mac drive. Too many people make it more difficult then it needs to be. To figure it out, just needed to know Unix.
1. NTFS auto-load read and write enable
sudo mv /sbin/mount_ntfs /sbin/mount_ntfs.orig
vi /sbin/mount_ntfs
#!/bin/sh
/sbin/mount_ntfs.orig -o rw "$@"
sudo chmod 755 mount_ntfs*
sudo chown root:wheel mount_ntfs*
2. NTFS boot sector fix
TestDisk from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk.

Well, at least I know that everything SHOULD be working as it did briefly this evening. I'm at a dead end . . .can't think of anything else to try.
Guess I'll just have to pick up another adapter tomorrow and see if that helps.

Help! two firewire 400 to one 800. both really need the 400-speed.

I've got the iMac with firewire800 and need to use both my m-audio interface and my liquid mix.
they are both fw400-devices
the liquid can be connected through the m-audio, but that is not enough for all data. the liquid and the m-audio really needs separate 400-connectors.
will a *good firewire-hub* do the job?
what can I do if not? buy mac pro? (quite expensive)
iMac 24
Focusrite Liquid mix
M-audio Profire 2626

My devices are all just drives. I have not seen any slow down due to using a hub (compared to separate ports), but I have not intentionally set up conditions where I am writing files to more than one drive at the same time either.
If the two devices interact with each other (data goes directly from one drive to the other), then I think the hub would be better because each device is connected equally to the Mac (more like using a Mac with two ports). If only one device is being accessed at any given time, then it probably does not matter too much if they are on the hub or daisy-chained.
In my case, if I was reading data from one drive and writing it to the other drive, I think it would be better to have the two drives connected to the hub (versus one drive being daisy-chained to the other). But if I was reading data from the internal drive and writing it to one (not both) of the external drives, then it would not matter too much how they are connected.
Hopefully, someone else with experience using devices like yours will pop by to provide some info.

FireWire 400 External Superdrive Not Working

Hi I have an older Lacie Design by FA Porsche Superdrive connected to Mac Book Pro running OS 10.5.1 via Fire Wire 400. I am trying to burn a DVD using Toast 8 but I keep recieving Error message -50 'the connection is unstable' and the DVD won't even attempt to burn. This is odd because Toast recognizes the drive and can read from it, but will not write to it. I checked the Lacie website and found some firmware updates, but they didn't help. They said they were updates for OS 10.3 and later, but maybe 10.5 is too late? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am completely stuck. Thanks.

Just about any external optical drive, other than Apple's, will work. For exampe, this one recommended by Macworld:
http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Writer-External-Optical-Drive/dp/B003M0NT1M?t ag=gmgamzn-20

I currently have a MAC Mini, which has 1 Firewire 800 port. I have a 1TB external hard disk that runs at Firewire 400. Can I insert another external hard drive that runs at Firewire 800?

Here's the deal. Currently running SL 10.6.8 on a MAC Mini. Planning for eventual upgrade to ML. Have a 1TB external hard drive partitioned into two volumes, one volume for Time Machine and one volume for SL which I periodically update using Superduper. Thus I always have a point-in-time bootable backup on the external hard drive.
The MAC Mini supports Firewire 800. However, booting from my current external hard disk is pretty slow, since it only supports Firewire 400. I am considering buying an Iomega MiniMax which supports Firewire 800. Then, I would use the MiniMax as my bootable backup volume, and relegate the older hard drive to Time Machine.
So, question #1 is, can I daisychain the new MiniMax between the MAC Mini and my existing external hard drive? My expectation is that the new Mini Max would run using Firewire 800 and that the existing hard drive would run at Firewire 400 speed as it does today. If it doesn't (e.g., daisychaining in the Firewire 400 external disk with the MiniMax Firewire 800 external disk ends up running the whole leg at 400), my resolution will be to run the existing hard disk off an available USB port and have just the MiniMax running at Firewire 800.
Why am I going to all this trouble? That's question #2. I don't trust upgrades; they always break something. When I upgraded from 10.5.x to 10.6.x, the web directories got renamed, and all of my web apps 403'd until I figured out what happened. Plus, I have accounts for other family members, and in order to ensure their ability to use the computer during my upgrade process, I need to have the ability to fall-back quickly to a known-stable version of OSX. So what I'm trying to do is insulate myself from problems by partitioning the MiniMax into two volumes, taking a Superduper image of my current installation on the Mac Mini to MiniMax external drive volume 1, then upgrading to ML on the MAC Mini, and take a SuperDuper image of that to MiniMax external drive volume 2. Then, if the upgrade results in problems I can't resolve immediately, I can simply reimage the MAC Mini from MiniMax volume 1. BUT ...
... I've read that the ML installation creates a "service and support" partition that is different than the startup disk. I'm concerned that I won't be able to reimage the hard disk in the MAC Mini once I upgrade it to ML because of the partitioning changes it introduces on the startup disk. Theoretically, I +should+ be able to use the disk utility on my SL system to repartition the disk in the MAC Mini prior to reimaging it from my backup, but I'm considering the possibility that the new partition may be of a type that the SL disk utility cannot identify, and might therefore be unable to delete or even detect. So I'm hoping someone else has been down this road and can advise me. Even at Firewire 800 speeds, booting from an external disk is still going to be slow, so I want to be able to restore my SL image to the MAC Mini hard disk.
A little background on me. I work for a major disaster recovery provider. I used to have a Mac PRO G5, which I got used, and the first thing I did with it was install a second hard disk, SuperDupe an image from the first disk to the second, and made sure I could boot from the second. THEN I started using and customizing the MAC. I really feel vulnerable with the MAC Mini, since it only has the single internal hard drive - sort of like going out in public dressed only in a long T-shirt. So my whole thing is, I ABSOLUTELY MUST BE ABLE TO PUT THINGS BACK THE WAY THEY WERE before I do the migration to ML.
Obsessive-cumpulsive? Yep. Anal? You got it. That's why I'm in the DR business.

You may have overloaded the port, following the instructions below it should reset:
+1. Shut down the computer.+
+2. Disconnect all devices and all other cables, except the keyboard and mouse cable(s).+
+3. Disconnect the computer from the power outlet and wait for 3 to 5 minutes.+
+4. Plug the computer back in and turn it on.+
+5. Reconnect the device(s) (one at a time if there is more than one) and test. Test with each port if you have more than one.+
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317?viewlocale=en_US

Firewire Hubs For Use With A New Firewire 800 External Drive

I currently have 3 HD daisy chained to one of my Firewire ports. I have an older Firewire iPOD with a dock that is attached to the other Firewire Port.
I need more storage capacity so I am planning to get 1 Tetra La Cie - this model. I have had excellent experiences with LaCie.
(LaCie 301442U d2 Quadra Hard Disk 1TB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (Aluminum).
I would be using the new HD as a Time Machine Device and possibly as backup for my music library which is currently on one of the external HD's and backed up to a second HD.
I don't have available ports.
Are there Firewire Ports which would be functional?
Should I be considering some other sort of configuration?
This is an iMAC 24" bought in October 2006
Thanks

My music library is housed on an external hard drive so Time Machine can't be used since it requires an operating system on the source files...
That's not true. You can back up files and folders on an external drive using Time Machine, as long as they are not on the same volume as the Time Machine archive. You just go to System Preferences +Time Machine+ pane. Click on the Options button. All external drives are on the +Do not back up+ list by default. Remove the external drive (with your iTunes files) from this list of things excluded from backup.
If don't want to include everything on that external drive, put the folders you do not want backed up on the +Do not back up+ list. What I've done for my external FireWire drive (which is my primary data storage volume since my internal is only 160GB) is create two main folders. They are called Documents and +Documents (not backed up)+. They serve as an extension of the user account folder on the internal drive. Files and folders I want backed up go into Documents. Files and folders that are non-critical go into +Documents (not backed up)+. So then, the external drive volume gets removed from the +Do not back up+ list, so that Time Machine backs it up. But I put the +Documents (not backed up)+ folder back on the +Do not back up+ list so that only the Documents folder gets backed up.
If you do daisy chain off the FireWire 800 port, be sure to put the 800 drive first on the chain. Putting the 400 drive before the 800 drive will reduce the speed to the 800 drive to 400 speed.
perhaps the beach ball I often get when working with iTunes is a product of the speed of the data being accessed on the external hard drive.
My +iTunes Music+ folder is on an FireWire 400 external drive. I do not notice any issues with iTunes accessing the files. That drive is attached directly to the iMac's port with no daisy-chaining behind it. If the free space gets low, the files and remaining free space will get more fragmented, and that can also cause such issues.

Firewire 400 on back of g4?

I vaguely remember reading a post a while back about the two Firewire 400 ports on the back of some systems not being equal and that only one was good for external hardrives. I have two lacie 250's running on firewire 400s and am wondering if I can plug them in independently or if they should daisy cahin through one port? Wouldn't make much sense to me that one should be better than the other but I thought I'd check.
dave

I've been doing what the Captain suggests above for a while now and have no issues to report. I use a fw 400 pcmcia card on my laptop, and a Sonnet 800 pci card on my desk top.
On the laptop the deck plugs into the card as I use a fire lite drive that needs the power from the built in port. On the desk top I have two g-raid 500gb drives raided together through the Sonnet card.
This being said, there is agreement that an external SATA RAID is a better solution if you need the speed, and a second internal drive will do well for DV25 material.
I see you have a fw800 card, so that should get you past the single bus bottle neck.
Tom

Firewire 400

Bought a beautiful MacBook 13-inch Aluminum but have 150GB of Firewire 400 external drive data. I know there is no firewire 400 to USB connection but there has to be some way to access the Firewire 400 data. Is there a hub or something else that would work? Lots of important stuff on the firewire 400. THANKS FOR HELP

Adam White wrote:
Probably the best/easiest solution is to purchase a USB2 enclosure and put the HDD into it. They are cheap and easy to find.
I thought of doing that once with a crashed external hard drive - actually an attempt to reuse the enclosure. Turns out the hard drive was fixed to the enclosure via crimped sheet metal. The enclosure might be practically unusable after it's over. In addition, the type of hard drive might need to be identified first before obtaining an enclosure. Many older external hard drives use IDE/PATA interfaces.
If it's absolutely necessary, you could probably reinstall the internal drive in a USB/FireWire combo enclosure. That should effectively add USB functionality in addition to FW.

Two firewire 400 external housings2 duo

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