Daisychaining question

[jhamerphoto]

I know tons of people ask about daisychaining, and I know what to do, but before I buy a small portable hard drive, I was wondering if I could use both FW400 and 800 at the same time in one daisychain. It would look as follows:

the small portable hard drive plugged into a G-tech Quad-interface 320gb drive via FW400, which will be plugged into a LaCie 1tb drive, which will then be connected to my MBP via FW800.

Will this work and all drives will show up?

thanks!

 

[Xander562]

So you're going: MBP <-FW800-> LaCie <-FW400-> other HDD. I have the 500GB iteration of the LaCie D2 Quadra and I just tested this out in the configuration above and it does work. Both drives show up on the desktop. I cannot give you specs on transfer speeds though.

 

[jhamerphoto]

There's another drive in there, but it's essentially the same...

Macbook Pro <-FW800-> LaCie 1Tb <-FW800-> G-Tech 320gb <-FW400-> portable drive

As long as they show up, I assume the portable would maintain FW400 speeds.
Thanks again!

 

[Xander562]

There's another drive in there, but it's essentially the same...

Macbook Pro <-FW800-> LaCie 1Tb <-FW800-> G-Tech 320gb <-FW400-> portable drive

As long as they show up, I assume the portable would maintain FW400 speeds.
Thanks again!

Ahh well I can't test that setup as I only have two externals. Sorry. Just out of curiosity, why not just plug that last FW400 directly into the MBP?

 

[sickmacdoc]

While I'll be darned if I can find the source to quote, I read not that long ago that if there is ANY FW400 involved (at any position) in a FW800 daisy chain, it will cause the entire chain to step down to FW400 speed.

I came across that when doing some research that wound up with me adding a PCI card with two additional FW 800 ports for the menagerie of FW drives I had up until recently in my backup set.

If I can find one of those sources I will post it back here.

 

[jhamerphoto]

Xander:

I would, but as a photographer I use my firewire 400 port for my CF reader for faster download speeds. I also use FCP at times, so downloading DV tapes via FW400 is also important.
If you're wondering why I haven't tested this with my FW400 reader yet, it's because in my current MBP, the logic board is failing and the FW800 port doesn't work and the 400 port sort-of works haha.
Thanks for your help though!

sickmacdoc:

That would suck, but I guess it's a trade-off. At least as just a small-capacity portable drive, I wouldn't have it plugged into my setup all the time.

 

[sickmacdoc]

Xander:

I would, but as a photographer I use my firewire 400 port for my CF reader for faster download speeds. I also use FCP at times, so downloading DV tapes via FW400 is also important.
If you're wondering why I haven't tested this with my FW400 reader yet, it's because in my current MBP, the logic board is failing and the FW800 port doesn't work and the 400 port sort-of works haha.
Thanks for your help though!

sickmacdoc:

That would suck, but I guess it's a trade-off. At least as just a small-capacity portable drive, I wouldn't have it plugged into my setup all the time.

Yep, that is true- at least the time when running at FW400 would be minimized that way.

 

[jhamerphoto]

just thought also...

it shouldn't matter if the drives are different formats right?
my 2 desktop drives are mac formatted, but I intend on keeping the portable one FAT32.

this is mainly just to store pictures on for travelling and using computers other than my own.

 

[sickmacdoc]

No, the format of the drives should not have any affect on the transer rates- you are correct. The transfer rates are determined by the interface electronics in the drive and in the Mac.