I'm seeing strange issues with Firewire 800 drives connected to a 2011 Dual i7 mini. Seems to take a long time to mount the drives. Especially after a restart. Anyone else seeing this at all?
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2011 mini Firewire Issues?
- Thread starter KScottMyers
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I have seen this with other macs over the last few years not just 2011's running lion.
i've had fw800 lacie drives, drvies in a voyager q dock, and an old fw400 drive with prolific controller and they all mount within a couple seconds of plugging in. if plugged in during bootup, they're already mounted by the time the desktop appears.
i even use a cavalry usb2 dual dock with 2x2tb drives in raid-1 configuration and that also mounts within a couple seconds of powering on.
if a drive is taking too long to mount, there may be a problem with the drive itself. os x may be running fsck on it before it mounts. check the console or system logs to see if it shows anything unusual. use disk utility to repair the disk or some third party app like drive genius or techtool pro to scan the drive for issues.
i even use a cavalry usb2 dual dock with 2x2tb drives in raid-1 configuration and that also mounts within a couple seconds of powering on.
if a drive is taking too long to mount, there may be a problem with the drive itself. os x may be running fsck on it before it mounts. check the console or system logs to see if it shows anything unusual. use disk utility to repair the disk or some third party app like drive genius or techtool pro to scan the drive for issues.
Thanks for the tips. Tried a few things. Replacing drives, reformatting - they all check out fine with disk utility. My setup uses two Firewire 800 drives daisy chained together.
The first one is used for additional storage and the second is a Time Machine drive. If I turn on the computer and power up the drives at the same time, the computer will sit for almost a minute before booting to the desktop.
If I turn on the drives after booting to the desktop the first one mounts quickly but the second drive can take up to almost a minute to mount. Seems like the second drive is the issue. If I reboot when both drives are mounted, they both won't show up on the desktop for almost a minute.
This is consistent with a second 2011 mini I have as well. The drive enclosures are two new Macally G-S350SUAB2 3.5 enclosures.
Strange. Still testing.
I've been using a Firewire 800 external enclosure for a few days now. I installed and SSD on my mini and so I have the original 500GB HDD in the enclosure. I have not had any issues. In fact, I've been pleasantly surprised with the performance. I use it for program caching and also storing pictures from Aperture.
I think Ive narrowed my issue down to the actual enclosures. Its the Macally G-S350SUAB2 3.5 enclosures. I have the same problem consistently with both my 2011 Mac minis. These enclosures are going back.
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Interesting. I have the Macally PHR-S250UAB and it's running fine thus far. I'll update if I come across strange issues.
Just got the Macally PHR-S250UAB enclosure and can confirm that it does indeed work fine. There is definitely something not right with the Macally G-S350SUAB2 3.5 enclosures. As I said before - I tested two of these on two different 2011 minis with the same issues. The PHR-S250UAB works fine.
Strange.
Maybe this will save someone from the same frustration.
I'v installed Lion on a WD 160 in a dual IGloo box. The install goes fine and the drive mounts, but it never boots, the gears just spin and spin and... This is a FW 400 but it worked fine with my 1st gen Mini. I'm about to give up trying to put a system on and just use them for "closet space"