super-duper, usb, and firewire

[fells]

can smart updates be done with usb and still be able to boot with firewire or is there anything lost in the translation?

[dnanian]

Sure, not a problem as long as the drive is properly partitioned (and supports FW startup in the first place).

[Kalkas]

Hello,

I have a simillar question and I just want to see if I have understood it right.

If I have understood it right, we can backup with SD! to a properly partitoned USB external drive instead to a FireWire drive.

I do have a FireWire drive, but it is too small for my system, while the USB drive has enough size. I know how to make a bootable FireWire drive. Could I use FireWire drive as a startup disk while the usb drive can be used as a disk where I store my images of the system? Is this a bad idea?

[dnanian]

As I've already indicated in a reply to your emailed support request, USB drives are fine and can be used as startup drives on Intel Macs.

[MarcP]

I have a new iMac and wish to have a SD bootable back up. What would be really nice is if I can use a USB powered external HDD rather than one that requires a separate power supply.

[sjk]

I doubt it matters if a drive is bus or external powered in order to boot from it (it doesn't with FireWire), though Dave possibly knows for sure.

[dnanian]

That should not be a problem, MarcP, assuming that the drive can run reliably bus powered. Kind of up to the drive itself!

[Walter]

I know this is the wrong place to ask this question but to me it seemed to flow with the questions/answers in this thread:

my iMac has only one 800 FireWire port because Apple in there wisdom ( ) decided not to wire up more then one. Therefore I had to purchase a special cable to connect my FW devices that use 400 ports and then daisy chain my FW devices. The daisy chaining has created some issues and havoc.

Is there a powered 800 port FireWire Hub and if so could you provide me with the url to who sells them ? I have had no luck finding one locally.

[dnanian]

I don't know of any (and haven't ever found a really reliable FW hub). Perhaps switch some of those 400s to USB?

[Walter]

Thanks for the insight and suggestion. I completely overlooked the idea of using the 400 in USB mode. I did a Google search but wow they are horribly expensive but then not sure how reliable they are.

Now I understand why Apple has only supplied one 800 port because they have effectively created new jobs building these powered hubs.

[sjk]

miniStacks have worked well for me as FireWire hubs and using their internal drives for backups.

[Walter]

Originally Posted by sjk

miniStacks have worked well for me as FireWire hubs and using their internal drives for backups.

Thanks.

Not an option for me now because i don't have the budget to buy a mini drive (s). However i will keep that in mind.

I think i found the solution:

☑ plug the 800 to 400 adapter cable to the iMac 800 FW port

then

☑ cable a 400 powered HUB to the FireWired Adapter

then

☑ plug the 400 devices into the 400 powered HUB.

I know that this hookup will not give me the 800 speeds but i need to make use of my 400 FW devices by turning them on or off when required rather then the daisy chain which has caused me some grief.

I have to review/research this hookup and then give a try.

[sjk]

Glad you've found a possible solution.

I've only got FW400 miniStacks (v2 and v2.5). Even though the latter is hooked to an Intel Mac mini that supports FW800 it was unavailable using FW400 devices with it. The former is hooked to an iMac G5, which only supports FW400 anyway (and the v3 miniStack with FW800 didn't even exist).