two hard drives on one firewire port??

[AeroBar]

Hi,

My iMAC has two firewire 400 ports.

I going to buy an external drive for storing and accessing my iTunes and iPhoto libraries and camcorder footage for editing with iMovie - I want this connected to the MAC all the time so I'm going have this connected to one of the firewire ports - leaving the other free for my camcorder.

but I am going to have to buy another external hard drive soon that I also want to be connected to the MAC at all times.

if I connect two external hard drives to the same firewire port via a firewire hub will this slow the performance of the two hard drives (or indeed the computer itself) ??

regards.

 

[kilowattradio]

Hi,

My iMAC has two firewire 400 ports.

I going to buy an external drive for storing and accessing my iTunes and iPhoto libraries and camcorder footage for editing with iMovie - I want this connected to the MAC all the time so I'm going have this connected to one of the firewire ports - leaving the other free for my camcorder.

but I am going to have to buy another external hard drive soon that I also want to be connected to the MAC at all times.

if I connect two external hard drives to the same firewire port via a firewire hub will this slow the performance of the two hard drives (or indeed the computer itself) ??

regards.

The only time you would notice a slow down is if you are accessing both HDD at the same time and a large amount of data is being transferred.

 

[cube]

You shouldn't need a hub if one of the drives has 2 firewire ports to daisy chain (usual).

The 400 Mbps of bandwidth will be divided among whatever is transferring at the same time (camcorder, disks).

 

[Pomeroy]

You shouldn't need a firewire hub. Every firewire drive I have has 2 ports and firewire can connect up to 63 peripherals in a daisy chain.

 

[AeroBar]

The only time you would notice a slow down is if you are accessing both HDD at the same time and a large amount of data is being transferred.

for example I can't listen to iTunes on one while importing video or working on iPhoto on the other

You shouldn't need a hub if one of the drives has 2 firewire ports to daisy chain (usual).

The 400 Mbps of bandwidth will be divided among whatever is transferring at the same time (camcorder, disks).

You shouldn't need a firewire hub. Every firewire drive I have has 2 ports and firewire can connect up to 63 peripherals in a daisy chain.

do you guys mean I can connect a second hard drive to the MAC via the first hard drive??

 

[jackerin]

do you guys mean I can connect a second hard drive to the MAC via the first hard drive??

Yes, you can connect multiple devices to one Firewire port on your Mac (it is not an abbreviation) using daisy-chaining.

I've myself got one audio interface and three external harddrives connected via the one FW400 port on my Mac mini; as each device has two FW ports there's no problem. (Though if one of the devices is bus-powered I think it's best to put that first in the chain.)

 

[zedsdead]

Are you sure you have two Firewire 400 ports and not one firewire 800 and one firewire 400?

Either way, you can simply daisy chain the hard drives and any camcorders through one port. A hub is not needed and the performance will not degrade unless you mix 800 and 400 on the same port.

 

[gr8tfly]

for example I can't listen to iTunes on one while importing video or working on iPhoto on the other

It won't have any noticeable affect on music playback, as that's running at a relatively low data rate.

do you guys mean I can connect a second hard drive to the MAC via the first hard drive??

I have the single FW800 port with 5 drives and a DL burner daisy-chained. The first three are FW800 and are had the head of the chain. I get full speed out of those, unless, of course, they're moving data to one of the other FW drives.

Aside from the speed, daisy-chaining is the other great advantage of FW over USB2.

 

[Sirmausalot]

From what I understand, your entire chain (including the first two devices) are running at 400 (assuming the DL is 400 and on the same chain).

Also, the OP should make sure the HDD are FW 400, 800 AND USB so as to maximize options depending on real world issues and eventual computer upgrade

It won't have any noticeable affect on music playback, as that's running at a relatively low data rate.


I have the single FW800 port with 5 drives and a DL burner daisy-chained. The first three are FW800 and are had the head of the chain. I get full speed out of those, unless, of course, they're moving data to one of the other FW drives.

Aside from the speed, daisy-chaining is the other great advantage of FW over USB2.

 

[gr8tfly]

From what I understand, your entire chain (including the first two devices) are running at 400 (assuming the DL is 400 and on the same chain).

No, not true: when using the FW800 drive(s) to/from the internal, I get exactly the same speed I would if it were the only drive on the port. That speed is pretty much the fastest real-world FW800 speed one can expect.

The FW800 drives are the first drives in the chain. This is a quick & dirty test I did recently (on my 17" UB MBP):

Tests on a ~800MB DMG file (the 10.5.7 combo updater) to/from internal 320GB 7200RPM (WD Scorpio Black) (just using Activity Monitor for measurement):

Seagate FreeAgent Desk Mac FW800 1TB(first in chain)
read: 68MB/s
write: 68MB/s

Seagate FreeAgent Pro FW400 750GB(about 3rd in chain, after two other FW800s)
read: 36MB/s
write: 36MB/s
​

 

[AeroBar]

thanks everyone

..........your Mac (it is not an abbreviation) ......

yes, I know that. but I'll call it a MAC if I want to