2.5" Firewire Drive - Permanently Connected, Not Working?

[Scuby]

I've been having trouble with a firewire drive (Seagate GoFlex FW800, 2.5" bus-powered drive) on my 2010 iMac, which recently failed, but I've found conflicting information to suggest whether the problems I've been having are part of a wider issue, or might just be an early symptom of the failure.

Basically, I wanted it always connected (obviously it spins itself down when not being accessed). However, if I shut down or slept my iMac, 90% of the time when I turned it back on the drive would be visible, but would just hang indefinitely if I attempted to access it (until I pulled the cable out). If I plugged it straight back in, it worked fine from then on, until I next shut the iMac down.

I've seen some things on the internet suggesting that a recent update to OS X broke it (i'm fully up-to-date), but I can't remember when it started going wrong so not sure whether that's true.

I've seen other things on the internet that suggest that certain brands of drive cannot be made to restart with the Mac, and that only certain firewire controllers are supported. But i'm sure I used to be able to do this when I first got the drive...?

I've also seen some suggestions from last year that it's an occasional problem that can be resolved by resetting SMC and PRAM - both of which I've tried and did nothing.

So, can anyone shed any light on this. Is it a known problem with OS X, that certain FW800 drives aren't supported? Is it just a glitch that sometimes happens? Does anyone else use a Seagate GoFlex FW800 drive without these problems?

Any suggestions / experiences greatly appreciated.

David

 

[cz9h3d]

I'd love to see some more recent user comments regarding the GoFlex 2.5" with Firewire interface. I saw the brief thread on Seagate's forum that suggested an issue with 10.6, and the drive not sleeping/waking correctly. Not much else posted from Mac users on this drive.

I've got a 1TB coming in the next day - $110 total for the USB3.0 & Firewire interface (Firewire interface is $9.99 this week at Staples, not online, but at the store). The Mac GoFlex version is just hitting shelves, but at $179+tax at my Best Buy, I can afford to format it myself (although I see it has a 3yr warranty vs. 2 - it's still at 5200 drive, isn't it?).

Anyways, was just wondering if others are successfully using the GoFlex Portable with Fireware?

BTW, my intent is to use this as my off-site storage. Put my important stuff on it every couple weeks.

 

[cz9h3d]

it's still at 5200 drive, isn't it?).

Answered my question...5200rpm..... only the 500GB and 750GB Ultra versions are 7200.

So for an extra $80 (after tax) I get a HFS+ formatted drive, an extra year of warranty, a USB 2.0 interface instead of a 2.0/3.0, and the Paragon driver (and silver vs. black).

I shouldn't have any issues since I'm not planning on using it with Time Machine, but still would like it to properly work in case I do someday.

 

[Scuby]

I think the one i had a problem with was just a faulty drive, rather than anything wrong with the Mac compatibility. Had it replaced and the new one works flawlessly. I have it always connected to the FW800 port of my iMac now and it handles start up, shut down, sleeping etc perfectly. No problems as far as i can tell now.

Even when the old drive wasn't working properly it was still fine If you plugged it in after OS X had started up, so if yiu're using it for off-site backups you shouldn't have much trouble anyway.

David

 

[Raman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I have A fully updated late 2010 iMac with a goflex ultra portable 1tb model:STA10000200 and use the FireWire 800 cable (connected 90 percent of the time). I have no issues at all with the problems mentioned. Also I have it partitioned half for time machine and half fat32. Very pleased with my drive. Hope that helps.