Thunderbolt - FireWire 800 boot drive

[retta283]

This might not be the best category for the post but let's just say I don't expect the people in the newer Intel boards to have as much knowledge on this or be able to answer as easily.

I'm curious if I can use a FireWire 800 external hard drive over Thunderbolt 1 as a boot drive for Macs, particularly those newer ones like Retina MBPs and slim iMacs that don't have FireWire anymore. The adapter is easy to source I'm just not sure if this adapter would be a bootable medium. I don't see any problem with power, it looks like 7W bus power is provided, and my HDDs work off of FireWire 800 bus power, I think 5W. Would reversing this process allow me to access the Thunderbolt computer via Target Disk mode plugged into an older FW 800 Mac? If anyone has tried these steps and has info let me know.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Just with a cursory Google search, it looks like it should be possible:

Official Apple Support Community

Find answers with millions of other Apple users in our vibrant community. Search discussions or ask a question about your product.

www.apple.com

I don't have any experience with Thunderbolt but, given that Macs will generally boot from anything they see a valid system on, I see no reason why it wouldn't work.

 

[iluvmacs99]

This might not be the best category for the post but let's just say I don't expect the people in the newer Intel boards to have as much knowledge on this or be able to answer as easily.

I'm curious if I can use a FireWire 800 external hard drive over Thunderbolt 1 as a boot drive for Macs, particularly those newer ones like Retina MBPs and slim iMacs that don't have FireWire anymore. The adapter is easy to source I'm just not sure if this adapter would be a bootable medium. I don't see any problem with power, it looks like 7W bus power is provided, and my HDDs work off of FireWire 800 bus power, I think 5W. Would reversing this process allow me to access the Thunderbolt computer via Target Disk mode plugged into an older FW 800 Mac? If anyone has tried these steps and has info let me know.

Yes you can. Apple allows booting off from Thunderbolt and Firewire as well as using Apple approved dongles. The clone or third party ones you get from eBay don't usually work or won't work at all for booting. You can do Thunderbolt target disk mode also, but only with older Intel Macs and with an Apple approved dongle adapter. Again, clone third party ones won't work too well or at all. Intel Macs with the T2 is limited to basic security and I think Apple Silicon Macs has a different way of restoring clone backups from a Thunderbolt drive. My Mini server is set up this way; Thunderbolt 1 (RAID5), Firewire 800 and USB 3.0 booting (from Thunderbolt hub) and cloning all my macs' OS onto my Thunderbolt RAID drives and booting off them using the Apple approved adapters and cables bought from the Apple store. They are expensive, but they always work. Learned my lessons with cheap stuff that don't work.

But why would you use an old Firewire 800 drive with the Firewire to TB2 adapter and then the TB2 adapter to a TB3 adapter to connect to the newer Retina MBP's and slim iMacs when you can get a SSD USB 3.1 gen 2 (USB-C) external SSD drive (Samsung T7) and get up to 10Gbit/s transfer speed and cost much less than the slower contraption that has an overhead and won't even give you 800Mbit/s with Firewire 800?

 

[Amethyst1]

Maybe OP also has Macs that have FW800 and/or TB1 but not USB 3/C. Hooking up a drive via USB 2 sucks.

 

[iluvmacs99]

Maybe OP also has Macs that have FW800 and/or TB1 but not USB 3/C. Hooking up a drive via USB 2 sucks.

Booting off FW800 on the new macs is so painfully slow and not much better than USB 2, but I only keep it available because of my PowerBook G4 DSLD which support FW800 booting and Firewire target disk mode which I connect to my Mac Pro to image its internal HD. Otherwise, once you feel the need, the need for speed of the USB-C's USB 3.1 gen 2 10Gbit/s xfer speed, you won't look back. Booting Mojave using FW800 requires some deep Buddha patience if you get my drift.

 

[Amethyst1]

Otherwise, once you feel the need, the need for speed of the USB-C's USB 3.1 gen 2 10Gbit/s xfer speed, you won't look back.

Again - what if the machine in question does not have USB3/C? Then TB1 is as good as it gets.

 

[iluvmacs99]

Again - what if the machine in question does not have USB3/C? Then TB1 is as good as it gets.

Yeah, but don't forget one thing. Older machines can not read APFS formatted drives. Any machine that has High Sierra and up has its internal drive formatted APFS. Older PPC and Early Intel Macs can not see APFS formatted drive on a new Intel Mac in Thunderbolt or even Firewire target mode which I think he wanted to do as well. And you can't format the internal drive of new Macs to HFS+ when it defaults always to APFS. That's the issue that he needs to be aware of if he wants to share boot drives between HFS+ and APFS in Thunderbolt target mode. That's why I have an Intel 2011 Mac Mini that acts as the middle man server; modern enough to see APFS but not old enough not to support older PPC and early Intel Macs on our home family network, because we have a myriad of old, not too old and modern Macs and PCs.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

I fear this was taken out of context due to my post. The page I link to describes using a TB3 adapter in addition to a TB1/2 adapter, but the OP only needs a TB1/2 adapter. Also, I'm sure the OP is aware of things like APFS incompatibility, as it is of much concern for anyone using an older Mac.

 

[Amethyst1]

Would reversing this process allow me to access the Thunderbolt computer via Target Disk mode plugged into an older FW 800 Mac?

No.

 

[iluvmacs99]

I fear this was taken out of context due to my post. The page I link to describes using a TB3 adapter in addition to a TB1/2 adapter, but the OP only needs a TB1/2 adapter. Also, I'm sure the OP is aware of things like APFS incompatibility, as it is of much concern for anyone using an older Mac.

The idea of that adapter is meant to hookup older Firewire 800 devices like scanners or video tape decks that support the MiniDV digital port as well as hooking up Firewire drives for macs that don't have Firewire ports. As a boot device, there's quite a bit of an overhead that slows down the drive's xfer throughput. In my test, it's no faster than a plain USB 2 SSD drive, so unless he has to and absolutely has to or must use the Firewire 800 as a boot drive of some sort, it's better to stick with a USB 3.0 device because Macs made in 2012 and later come with USB 3.0 ports which you can boot from the oldest Macs to the newer Intel Macs. In my case, I stopped using the adapters and just go with my Mini. You know, my Firewire 800 drive virtually just sits there sucking power while the Mini serves my TB RAID drive and the USB3 SSD drives on our home network because they are just so much faster. I kept it there because of my G4 and if it wasn't for the G4 and my older G3 that I could use to boot it from, it would be gone. If a USB 3.0 SSD drive is ultra expensive, than maybe buy the adapter and use the FW800. But really, they are not. I mean just last summer, I got an Adata 480Gb SSD for like $35 US from Amazon, boots fine on my Macs and came to the same price as the TB2 to Firewire adapter sold by Apple. You can use an old Mac, virtually clone your Firewire 800 content onto the USB 3 SSD drive at super slow USB 2 speeds and then once connected to a USB 3 capable Mac, it boots like in seconds!

 

[RogerWilco6502]

The idea of that adapter is meant to hookup older Firewire 800 devices like scanners or video tape decks that support the MiniDV digital port as well as hooking up Firewire drives for macs that don't have Firewire ports. As a boot device, there's quite a bit of an overhead that slows down the drive's xfer throughput. In my test, it's no faster than a plain USB 2 SSD drive, so unless he has to and absolutely has to or must use the Firewire 800 as a boot drive of some sort, it's better to stick with a USB 3.0 device because Macs made in 2012 and later come with USB 3.0 ports which you can boot from the oldest Macs to the newer Intel Macs. In my case, I stopped using the adapters and just go with my Mini. You know, my Firewire 800 drive virtually just sits there sucking power while the Mini serves my TB RAID drive and the USB3 SSD drives on our home network because they are just so much faster. I kept it there because of my G4 and if it wasn't for the G4 and my older G3 that I could use to boot it from, it would be gone. If a USB 3.0 SSD drive is ultra expensive, than maybe buy the adapter and use the FW800. But really, they are not. I mean just last summer, I got an Adata 480Gb SSD for like $35 US from Amazon, boots fine on my Macs and came to the same price as the TB2 to Firewire adapter sold by Apple. You can use an old Mac, virtually clone your Firewire 800 content onto the USB 3 SSD drive at super slow USB 2 speeds and then once connected to a USB 3 capable Mac, it boots like in seconds!

I mean, there's no USB TDM, so TDM may be the main motivation of using FireWire in this case.

 

[Amethyst1]

there's no USB TDM

There is - on the 12" MacBook.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

There is - on the 12" MacBook.

Really? I never knew that. That's quite interesting, but I can see the need for it. xD

 

[mdgm]

A lot depends on what early Intel Macs you have, whether you anticipate purchasing newer Macs in the future etc.

With a TB1 port the best performance would be obtained by booting off a TB3 NVMe SSD. If planning to get newer Macs in the future then you'd be able to unlock the full performance of the drive once you connect it up to a Mac with TB3 ports in the future.

Mac -> TB(1/2) cable -> Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter -> TB3 Dock -> TB3 NVMe drive. Over TB1 this still provides faster performance than a single internal SATA III SSD would.

For a boot drive with a Mac with TB1, I wouldn't use a FW800 drive.

If you want external storage to use with both mid-Intel and early Intel Macs, you can get drives that have both USB3 and FW800. You can hook a USB3 drive up to a dock to use it with a Mac with TB1 ports that doesn't have USB3 ports to get better performance than hooking up to a USB2 port and hook up to FW800 when connected to older Macs. For example, I have the OWC Mercury on the Go Pro hooked up to an early 2009 Mini as a boot disk and a second I plan to hook up to my late 2009 Mac Mini once I get another SSD. Once I retire the 2009 Minis, I can switch from using FW800 to using USB 3.0.

 

[reukiodo]

Using the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter, I have been able to boot a 2015 Macbook Pro 15 off of several FW800 and also FW400 drives.

I have an old FW enclosure (with both 800 and 400) formatted with APM (Apple Partition Map) and many MacOS installers from 9 all the way to 10.14, bootable as far back to a Pismo. Even a 2018 Macbook Pro 15 has been able to boot from this FW drive, using an additional Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter.

 

[bobesch]

Using the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter, I have been able to boot a 2015 Macbook Pro 15 off of several FW800 and also FW400 drives.

I have an old FW enclosure (with both 800 and 400) formatted with APM (Apple Partition Map) and many MacOS installers from 9 all the way to 10.14, bootable as far back to a Pismo. Even a 2018 Macbook Pro 15 has been able to boot from this FW drive, using an additional Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter.

Great!

So far I've only used the TB-To-FW800 adapter for quick ad-hoc network-connection between "Late"-Early-Intels and Early-Intels and PPC (for fast CCC-backups of PowerBookG4's document-folder to my main driver 17" early-2008 MBP).
Even TB-To-FW800<>FW400-adapter-cable does work. PPC is supported downwards to Tiger.

That FireWire&Thunderbolt-magic and things like CCC-clone-backup-stuff are the reasons I certainly won't ever go back to another operating system and stick with PPC/EarlyIntel/PreRetina-Late-Early-Intel/Tiger-To-Mojave(Patch) as long as possible ...

 

[joevt]

Really? I never knew that. That's quite interesting, but I can see the need for it. xD

My Mac mini 2018 also supports USB Target Disk Mode. There's a Thunderbolt and USB icon that moves around the screen until you connect another Mac via Thunderbolt or USB. Then the the other icon disappears. Is it safe to connect USB Type A from Mac mini 2018 to USB type A of another Mac? To be safe, I would not try that - instead, use a USB-C to USB-C cable or a USB-C to USB-A cable.

My MacBook Pro 2015 had FireWire and Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode. I think Macs replaced FireWire Target Disk Mode with USB Target Disk Mode in 2016?

I have a FireWire drive and the Mac mini 2018 is able to see it in the Startup Manager (hold the Option key at boot). It works from an OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock (with FireWire), an OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock (with FireWire) and an Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter (but I couldn't get Mac mini 2018 -> HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 -> Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter -> Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter to work - that might be because of the HP firmware update that I applied recently).

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

If you are talking about data transfering to and from HDD, I would suggest a simpler solution:

1. Plug an USB 3.0 box with HDD directly to your router and use it as a Network storage device.
2. Buy/receive an old HP small form factor PC and set it up as a network drive. (my current set-up for home NAS)

 

[Juicy Box]

Booting off FW800 on the new macs is so painfully slow and not much better than USB 2

Booting a SSD off of FW800 isn't bad.

I boot off of FW800 all the time for OS installation, troubleshooting, and testing, and it feels similar to SATA SSDs unless doing a long read or write, and even then the speeds would be comparable to a 2.5" HDD in a Mac laptop.

Actually, on another thread I posted some test results comparing a SSD on FW800 and USB2 to an internal SATAII SSD and a new internal 3.5" HDD.

For sequential reads and writes, both the internal HDD and SSD out performed the FW800 SSD by a lot, but for Random, the FW800 out performed the HDD and wasn't too far off the internal SSD.

FW800 was double the speeds of USB2 when I tested them with the same SSD.

I'm not saying that FW800 would be ideal, and given the choice of FW800 and USB3 or TB, I wouldn't choose FW800, but depending on what the user was doing with their Mac, a SSD on FW800 might not feel that much different than some faster options, and could feel faster and much more responsive than a HDD.