Daisy-Chaining Ext. HD & Camera

[swwack91]

If I connect my HD to my Mac via a FW800 cable and connect my MiniDV camera to the HD's free FW400 port, will I be losing any data?

 

[zioxide]

no

 

[eRondeau]

I've never been able to get this to work. My Canon Optura-20 needs to be plugged directly into my FireWire port or it won't work at all. Normally I have two external hard drives and an external DVD burner daisy-chained to FW and it works just fine. If yours is the same, try connecting your external HD using USB2 instead.

 

[sammich]

I've done this before on many occasions, it works just as you expect it would (with a slightly older miniDV). Although it is a FW400 enclosure, it shouldn't make any difference with a FW800 enclosure.

 

[rotlex]

I connect a Canon HV20 to the FW400 port of a drive that's attached to the machine via the FW800 port, and it works fine. So yeah, it should not be a problem.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Some devices have conflicts while daisy-chained, some don't. No harm in trying.


Lethal

 

[trudd]

Some devices have conflicts while daisy-chained, some don't. No harm in trying.


Lethal

Very true. Over the summer I was importing some documentary footage on location in Honduras. I had my GL2 hooked into my Lacie's FW400 port, then the Lacie going to my MBP via FW800.

I imported 2 hours of footage without a hitch. On the third tape FCP started warning me of dropped frames. At first I thought it was the tape - turns out my computer didn't like the daisychain.

Luckily I had a FW800 2 port express card with me and was able to lighten the load.

 

[trudd]

Also, as a side note, the age of your camera can determine how you can hook it all up.

My MBP has one FW400 port and one FW800 port. My GL2 was not recognized when I had it plugged into the FW400 port and my HDD into the FW800 port, so I had to use my express card.

However, with my Canon XH-A1 I can use it in the FW400 port while my HDD is plugged into the FW800 port.

There seem to be a lot of little factors. As Lethal said, just try it out 😉