Help with Playback Engine Settings

[Bezo]

Thanks for the help!

[Bezo]

OK, I have 2 Glyph Technology 1TB Quad Desktop Hard Drive - GT050Q drives on the way. They are qualified by Digi. They have 2 FW800 ports & 1 FW400 port.

I have 2 final questions if anyone can help.

What does Digi mean by: "If you are using a FW 400 LE device we recommend running the drives on a separate FW400 bus for maximum track counts and disk performance." Separate FW400 bus?

Lastly, since the drives have FW800 ports, I can use FW800 cables from drive to drive to CPU. But since I'm using the 002 Rack, at least 1 FW400 connection is necessary. Can anyone tell me if it would be best to use a FW400 cable from the 002 Rack to the FW400 port on the drive - or a combo FW400/800 cable from the 002 Rack to the FW800 port on the drive?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Bezo

OK, I have 2 Glyph Technology 1TB Quad Desktop Hard Drive - GT050Q drives on the way. They are qualified by Digi. They have 2 FW800 ports & 1 FW400 port.

I have 2 final questions if anyone can help.

What does Digi mean by: "If you are using a FW 400 LE device we recommend running the drives on a separate FW400 bus for maximum track counts and disk performance." Separate FW400 bus?

Your iMac only has one Firewire bus, so you have no choice here. If you had multiple buses you would put the drives on a separate bus from the interface, and ideally that would be a FW800. With later iMacs you have the option to run an SSD + rotating hard drive internally or of connecting external Thunderbolt storage or using a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter to get you another Firewire bus.

Originally Posted by Bezo

Lastly, since the drives have FW800 ports, I can use FW800 cables from drive to drive to CPU. But since I'm using the 002 Rack, at least 1 FW400 connection is necessary. Can anyone tell me if it would be best to use a FW400 cable from the 002 Rack to the FW400 port on the drive - or a combo FW400/800 cable from the 002 Rack to the FW800 port on the drive?

I've already answered that question, start with your new drives connected (using their FW400 ports) as the existing drives are now and just see how that works. Change as few things as possible at one time. Don't assume that going to the disks at FW800 speeds and then stepping down to FW400 for the interface may be better because the disk IO will be faster, it might be, but here are also reasons it may not. Take things slow at first but be prepared to play with the chaining order.

Darryl

[Bezo]

Ahh, OK.

This is not sounding as promising all of a sudden. I'll hope for the best.

Thanks

[Bezo]

This is killing me slow. After formatting & saving files to the drives, I was no longer able to get my CPU to recognize one of the drives. Tried everything I could think of.

Sent the drive back and while I'm waiting for the replacement, now my CPU won't recognize the other drive.

Edit: To clarify, the "activity" light on the drive won't come on. It powers up fine, but that light that usually glows/flashes when something is happening doesn't come on and the drive doesn't appear in the Finder or on the Desktop.

[Bezo]

Got it working again. Anyone have inconsistent behavior like this from a drive? Is this likely a FW cable issue?

My replacement drive should be here today. If I have the same issue, I'm going to get some new cables. Any features I should look for? My combo 400/800 cable has a metal tip on the 800 end. My other FW 800 cables have plastic tips. Seems like the metal tip grabs the input a bit more firmly. I don't see any metal tip FW 800 cables online though.

[Bezo]

I finally have 2 working drives and everything is running smoother than ever. Thanks everyone for the help.