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Toby Goodbar

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 8, 2006
400
0
how do you connect 2 macs via firewire WITHOUT target disk mode?

i repeat WITHOUT TARGET DISK MODE.
 
Yes, they'll be connected via a network and any shared files will appear on the other Mac.
 
through bonjour i would think. auto discovery.

connect together, finder->go->connect to server. use computers network name to connect.

nah, no dice on that suggestion. you'd think a firewire connection would be simpler than this.
 
Firewire isn't a magic bullet for connecting computers unless you use target disk mode, which makes life easy because only one computer is doing the work--when you have two systems with simultaneous access to the same data, as in the sort of connection you're describing, it's FAR more complicated by necessity. Something has to manage who gets to modify what files.

Doing what you want is going to be exactly the same as connecting two computers via an ethernet connection, sans-router:

Hook one to the other. Open up the Network preference pane, select the Firewire interface, and select "Configure Manually" from the drop-down. Type in an appropriate IP address and subnet mask (easy one: 192.168.0.1, subnet 255.255.255.0). Click "Apply".

Now do exactly the same thing on the other computer, but give it the IP address 192.168.0.2. Make sure File Sharing is turned on on the computer you want to get the files off of.

From the other computer select the aforementioned Connect To Server, and type in the IP address of the other computer (so if you're on 192.168.0.2, type in 192.168.0.1). Hit return, and it should prompt for a password.

It's possible, depending on how your home network connection is configured, that you might need to disable the other network interfaces temporarily for this to work.

It's also worth noting that if both Macs have Gigabit ethernet built in, it'll actually be FASTER to connect them exactly as described above, but with a network cable instead of with Firewire--FW400 is less than half the speed of Gigabit, and even FW800 is slower, since you're having to deal with the network overhead in either case.

Of course, if you have a gigabit router and both computers are connected to it wired, it's going to be a heck of a lot easier--just look in the Finder sidebar for the other computers (they'll announce themselves via Bonjour), or figure out what IP address one is using and type that in manually on the other.
 
Yes, they'll be connected via a network and any shared files will appear on the other Mac.
Answer is pretty late but maybe helpful to anyone coming across this thread.
@Intell: Yeah, you're right! Today I was looking for a fast and easy way to copy/sync data from my desktop-macbook to the one I use on the go and voila: just connected both books with a FW800-cable and the other book can be found as a network-connected device. No Target-disk-mode. No Wifi enabled. No ethernet-cable-plugged in.
File-transfer is rocket-fast, at least SSD-writing-speed is to be the bottleneck with FW800?
And both books can be connected to the internet via Wifi simultaneously - Wifi can be switched on/off without inflicting the FW-connection and data-transfer. Great!
This was done with two intel-MBpro with ElCapitan/Sierra. Gonna check that with PowerBooks tomorrow ...
I guess, connection with Thunderbolt will work the same, but cannot proof that, since I don't owe a Thunderbolt-cable and don't want to go for one (got the Thunderbolt-FireWire800 connector instead which is better for my mixed intel-PowerPC-environment)

Edit: Jepp! Connection between intel and PowerPC can also be made just by plugging the FW cable into both books. Even the option
"intel-Mac/Thunderbolt<>Thunderbolt-FW800-Connector<>FW800/400-Cable<>PowerPC/FW400" works like a charm. Without Target-Disk-Mode/WiFi/Ethernet.
 
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It's never too late. FireWire 800 will transfer data at about 70-80 megabytes per second. Not as fast a Mac's Ethernet port, but plenty fast. The bottleneck when doing this with two SSD Macs is the FireWire 800. It goes at a maximum speed of 800 Mbps whereas the slowest Intell based Mac has a SATA port speed of 1.5Gps or 1,500Mbps. Happy filesharing @bobesch!
 
Oh...really? I'll just leave this here.
Yeah, it's just a plug&play connection which works from PowerPCs/Leopard up to intel-Macs/HighSierra with all these options: FireWire, Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt2FW-Connector and FW800To400-cable.
I mainly use this option now to get backup-copies from my Macs at home (Desktop/Documents-folders) to my on-the go MacBook (ElCap). With CarbonCopyCloner I've created templates for each machine set to start sync as soon as both Macs are connected.
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It's never too late. FireWire 800 will transfer data at about 70-80 megabytes per second. Not as fast a Mac's Ethernet port, but plenty fast. The bottleneck when doing this with two SSD Macs is the FireWire 800. It goes at a maximum speed of 800 Mbps whereas the slowest Intell based Mac has a SATA port speed of 1.5Gps or 1,500Mbps. Happy filesharing @bobesch!
Oh, I thought FireWire800 transfer-rate was 800Mbps and writing-speed of my SSD is about 500Mbps. So the SSD should be the bottleneck, when it comes to the connection between two Macs with single SSDs via FW800-cable ...? (well, I missed Physics :( )
 
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