Firewire 800 + 400 can't be used simultaneously? Why?

[GordonFreeman]

Quote from http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=23126
"- FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 drives should not be combined"

I have 2 old external Firewire 400 enclosures (PATA). One of the drives is failing. If I use the opportunity to start upgrading to Firewire 800, do I have to update both enclosures to 800 (recording and virtual instrument drive)?

Apparently digidesign doesn't support use of 800 and 400 at the same time. Is this still true? Does that include 1 drive on a 400 port and the other on the 800 port?
Any personal experiences?

[albee1952]

From what I have read on the DUC, I would stick with FW400 all around.

[GordonFreeman]

Originally Posted by albee1952

From what I have read on the DUC, I would stick with FW400 all around.

OK. Cool.
Even for 2 daisy-chained drives?

[Woody Woodruff]

Just reading my new Glyph manual. While it does not claim that you may not run FW400 & 800 together, as PT literature suggests, it does say that the bus will run at the slowest speed of any the attached FW device. So why drag your 800 down to 400?

BTW, I am rummaging around here trying to see if eSATA will be my best connection to external HD, it is much faster than FW800, according to Glyph.

[mixer]

I have both connected to my system. Have had no trouble. Even had both types at once on 400 holds my samples for soft synths. 800 had sessions.. no problem.

[Richard901]

Choice:
1. Firewire 400 drive.
2. Firewire drive with 400, 800, esata, USB (e.g. Lacie d2 Quadra) - connected
with Firewire 400 cable.

Assuming both drives have Oxford chipsets, are they both as compatible with Pro Tools (CPU error messages, etc.)?
Do the extra interfaces in choice 2 lead to problems, even though they are not connected to the computer?

Thanks for your help.

Richard

[jeremyroberts]

Gents: some of you are NOT reading the fine print here...

YES, mixing FW800 and FW400 on the same bus will WORK, HOWEVER, you have now crippled your FW800 device to FW400 speed. If you are happy, then move on....but why invest in FW800 technology not to use it?

[chrisdee]

Has anybody tried eSATA with PT8 ?

[reichman]

Has anybody tried eSATA with PT8 ?

Yes, and with the right host card and drives, it's been flawless, and much faster than Firewire. MacGurus hooked me up with the right cards for my Macs, and their Burly eSATA tower. I couldn't be happier with it.

In February, I did have a terrible problem with a cheap Sonnet eSATA card, though. On MacGurus' recommendation, I switched to Lycom and everything worked.

Best,

Nathaniel Reichman
www.nathanielreichman.com

MacPro 2.8Ghz 8-core, 6GB RAM, 10.5.6, Pro Tools LE 8.0.0cs2 with Complete Production Toolkit, Digi 002R, Control|24, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, eSATA hotswap tower, Baby HUI, Soundminer 4, Waves Platinum 6, Audio Ease All-In, Melodyne, SoundToys, Izotope RX, GRM Tools, PSP, Retrospect...