Can you daisy chain portable FW800 Drives?

[sinar]

Hi,

I have a FW800 portable hard drive, it only has one FW800 port, and I need another hard drive, if i buy a portable FW800 hard drive with 2 FW800 ports could I daisy chain my original one through the new one? would it work ok?

I'm not sure if there is enough power coming from a single FW800 port to run 2 external hard drives,

Thanks for reading,

 

[MisterMe]

Hi,

I have a FW800 portable hard drive, it only has one FW800 port, and I need another hard drive, if i buy a portable FW800 hard drive with 2 FW800 ports could I daisy chain my original one through the new one? would it work ok?

I'm not sure if there is enough power coming from a single FW800 port to run 2 external hard drives,

Thanks for reading,

If you want to lug around multiple external hard drives, then you should reconsider. Drives take-up space and they weigh you down. The whole point of the MacBook Air is that it suffers from no weight or power consumption from rotating disc storage. If you just have to have external storage, then you should limit yourself to one external drive.

Of course, you can daisy chain FW800 drives. That is one of their design features. However, the ability to daisy chain does not seem to be your issue. Apparently, you want to use bus-powered FW800 drives. Irrespective of the communications protocol, there are limits to power that the bus can supply. You need to ask about specific drives rather than FW800 drives, in general.

 

[sinar]

If you want to lug around multiple external hard drives, then you should reconsider. Drives take-up space and they weigh you down. The whole point of the MacBook Air is that it suffers from no weight or power consumption from rotating disc storage. If you just have to have external storage, then you should limit yourself to one external drive.

Of course, you can daisy chain FW800 drives. That is one of their design features. However, the ability to daisy chain does not seem to be your issue. Apparently, you want to use bus-powered FW800 drives. Irrespective of the communications protocol, there are limits to power that the bus can supply. You need to ask about specific drives rather than FW800 drives, in general.

Thanks for the reply, sorry I should have been more specific, I won't be "lugging around" any of the hard drives, they will be used with my iMac, and will be permanently housed on a iMac backpack adjustable shelf.

I know it makes more sense to buy desktop hard drives as they are much cheaper per GB, but I don't want to have any more mains cables, so I'm happy to pay the extra for portable drives, even if I won't be taking advantage of the portability.

I currently have a Iomega eGo 500GB FW400/FW800/USB2.0 Portable Hard Drive Mac Edition, which only has one FW800 port, and I'm thinking of buying a G-Tech 750GB G-DRIVE mobile Portable Hard Drive, or a Iomega eGo BlackBelt Portable 1 TB External hard drive, both of which have 2 FW800 ports.

 

[ljonesj]

i think you can but the fw800 single port drive better have a power supply to it. As i think you can have portable drive or normal drive that has 2 fw8oo ports can be used first using the power from the computers port. then second drive has to get power from external power for it to work.

 

[sinar]

i think you can but the fw800 single port drive better have a power supply to it. As i think you can have portable drive or normal drive that has 2 fw8oo ports can be used first using the power from the computers port. then second drive has to get power from external power for it to work.

Thanks, I did think it would be a stretch for the iMac's single FW port to run 2 unpowered drives, I might just end up getting a USB drive and plugging it into my existing powered hub, as I really don't want another mains cable.