Daisy Chaining Firewire troubles

S

SovietDiesel

New member
I guess this doesn't technically relate to FCP, but I hope some of you guys might be able to help. I searched and didn't find this question.

I'm setting up a series of drives to run on an Intel iMac (running 10.4.11). The drives are all G-Drive, all externally powered, 8 total. Unfortunately, there are no FW800 connections on this iMac, so I've connected the drives by USB 2.0. But, the other drives are daisy chained together via FW800, because that was the only standard for which I had enough cables. All the drives are powered up, but only those connected directly will mount.

I've tried the following things, and none of them have given me any insight:
-Connecting the other drives directly to the iMac via USB; they all mount when I do this, just not when daisy chained.
-Only daisy chaining 2 drives together; the indirectly connected drive still doesn't mount
-Gnashing my teeth and cursing; none of these things have helped

I'm hoping that there's someone who knows what obvious and stupid thing it is that I'm (not) doing.
 
Don't the drives have FW400 connections? That would work better than USB 2.0, but even then I don't think you'd be able to chain all 8 drives together. I think you just might have to buy bigger drives and migrate your data.

-A
 
Uh, daisy chaining 8 drives is just asking for trouble, but especially switching from FW to USB 2. My question is WHY would expect this to work?...However, you might want to plug the last drive into a USB 2 self powered hub (one with its own power supply) before plugging it into the mac.
 
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Ummm... daisy-chaining eight drives should be fine. You can only daisy-chain drives using firewire; USB does not supporrt it, and you certainly can't chain firewire drives to a drive connected to the computer by USB.

Firewire 400 will give you better performance than USB 2.0 anyway; all you need to do for your setup to work is to connect the FIRST drive to your computer via FW.

A 9 pin to 6 pin firewire cable is all you need to connect a FW800 device to your iMac, if the G-drives don't have FW400 ports.
 
adkimery said:
Don't the drives have FW400 connections? That would work better than USB 2.0, but even then I don't think you'd be able to chain all 8 drives together. I think you just might have to buy bigger drives and migrate your data.

-A
Click to expand...

Yes, they do. I just didn't have access to FW400 cables. It was FW800 (which I couldn't connect to the computer), USB, or nothing.

I wish I could do a lot of things with this setup, like connect via a central hub instead of chaining everything, and connect to the computer using FW800. But, I need to requisition funds for all expenses, and I wanted to do what I could with what's available before spending.

Anyway, color me stupid for thinking I could chain USB with FireWire in this order. I've only had USB devices on the end of a chain before, and flat out never thought about it. Thanks.
 
SovietDiesel said:
Anyway, color me stupid for thinking I could chain USB with FireWire in this order. I've only had USB devices on the end of a chain before, and flat out never thought about it. Thanks.
Click to expand...

You can't chain USB and FW devices together in ANY order. It just doesn't work that way!

Like I say, if budget is the issue, a FW400 cable will solve all your problems. Find a friend who has a lot of extras lying around? Lot's of people do...
 
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