Can you run an interface, and an external hard drive through one firewire port?

[beyoutofull1]

Can you run an interface, and an external hard drive, through one firewire port in protools?

Thanks

[Draulym]

Yes, connect external drive to firewire on puter, connect interface to firewire on external drive

[Soul Fader]

Or in my case, vise versa

[TeeBlack]

i was told if you are running pro tools le then
(Computer=>External Hd=>Digi Interface)

and for pro tools m-powered it's the opposite
(Computer=>M-Audio Interface=>External Hd)

[fridrikur]

Originally Posted by TeeBlack

i was told if you are running pro tools le then
(Computer=>External Hd=>Digi Interface)and for pro tools m-powered it's the opposite (Computer=>M-Audio Interface=>External Hd)

You are absolutely right Teeblack. Has had me baffled too. It is very confusing. As you say M-audio recommends to use the built in firewire controller for the audio interface and an extra firewire controller (pci card) for the external drive.
Digidesign on the other hand recommends to use an add on pci firewire controller card (TI instrument chipset) for the audio interface.
I do it this way: audio interface is plugged in to the add od firewire card called ADS pyro 64 bit, which is qualified with ProTools, and I use the onboard firewire controller card for my external drive. Works like a charm. Incidentally my onboard card does also have the TI chipset, but this is not important (can not hurt though) since it is the chipset of the external drive that must be qualified with PT, and this has an Oxford 11 chipset.

[bobbytouche]

I was wondering the same thing. I saw this and looked at the back of my Project Mix I/O. It only has one firewire port. How can you go computer/project mix/external, with only one port on the I/O as somebody mentioned?

[soundmaster]

with my acer notebook I go: internal FW -> HDD 1st FW In -> HDD 2nd FW out -> 1814 FW in.
Works great.

[TOM@METRO]

Note, even though it's within the spec, it's safer not to hot swap the interface, shut it all down first.