Word of warning about SD and iPods

[edalzell]

Just a word of warning about SD and iPods.

If you are copying your backup to a new HD, don't plug in your iPod to charge it. If you do, then SD will freeze and give you quite the scare!!

I am using a Seagate Barracuda 250G HD with a Byte CC Firewire enclosure and a 4th gen iPod.

Thanks

[edalzell]

...against SD of course. I bought and fully trust SD to do its job properly.

This was more of a warning against plugging in your iPod while your external HD is busy doing its thang.

[dnanian]

This is a general issue for FireWire devices: when you plug/unplug a device, it can often cause surges and bus resets... and if that happens, the I/O system (as opposed to SD) will freeze.

SD, alas, is using I/O and will lock up until the calls it makes return... and that could take quite a lot of time.

So -- yes, don't do that!

[edalzell]

Even better was when I unplugged the iPod and SD just quit w/o warning! Ah well, a quick reboot and all was well again.

Perhaps some big lettering in the User's Guide would help others?

[dnanian]

I'll consider it, Ed... of course, it assumes people *read* the User's Guide.

[edalzell]

Originally Posted by dnanian

I'll consider it, Ed... of course, it assumes people *read* the User's Guide.

Well, I did (granted not the whole thing) and it is a very nice User's Guide.

[danger girl]

Originally Posted by edalzell

Even better was when I unplugged the iPod and SD just quit w/o warning!

I think I can beat that. About 24 hours into backing up about 60 GB from my external USB hard drive to my new external firewire hard drive using my pre-USB2.0 iMac, my daughter decides to plug in the iPod to charge (I'm not sure what part of "don't touch the computer" was unclear). It looks like it is still going, though the elapsed time has reset (twice). I'm afraid to even look at the iPod. I guess I'll know in an hour or two...at .66MB/s this takes forever.

[edalzell]

Originally Posted by danger girl

I think I can beat that. About 24 hours into backing up about 60 GB from my external USB hard drive

Yikes...thank goodness for Firewire, eh?